The Odious Reggie continued to prove his utility; he took her arm as soon as they were out of the crush. She didn’t get much chance to look at the terminal, though; he steered her through a mob of people who streamed toward the street. Once there, he commandeered a hansom cab and lifted her into it.
“Head, heart, hands, or soles first?” he asked genially, once he was safely in beside her. She could only shake her head in bewilderment.
“Lightest first, then, since I’m likely to end up as your beast of burden.” He tapped on the roof with his umbrella, and a little hatch above their heads opened and the driver peered down at them through it.
Evidently Reggie knew exactly where to go, too. He rattled off a name, the hatch snapped shut, and they were off, the horse moving at a brisk trot through streets crowded with all manner of vehicles—including motorcars. Marina couldn’t help it; she stared at them with round eyes, causing Reggie still more amusement.
“Soles” proved to be Reggie’s first choice; the cobbler. This was for the very simple reason that the shoes would have to be sent, being “bespoke,” or made to Marina’s measure. She chose riding boots, two pairs of walking shoes, and at Reggie’s urging, a pair of dancing slippers. When she protested that she had no use for such a thing, he laughed.
“Do you think I’m going to let you keep treading on my toes in what you’re wearing now?” he said, making her blush. “Dancing slippers, m’gel. My feet have had enough punishment. If you’re going to keep treading on them, let it be with soft slippers.”
From there, they went to the glover—which was a thing of amazement to her, that there was an establishment that sold nothing but gloves—and she got a full dozen pairs, all black, of course, but of materials as varied as knitted lace and the softest kid-leather. Reggie overruled her completely there, when she would only have gotten one satin pair and one kid. He’d gone down the entire selection in black, picking out one of everything except the heavy wool, and two of the kid.
Then the milliner. And at that establishment, Reggie excused himself. She had conducted herself with dispatch—or at least, as much as would be allowed, given that the cobbler took all the measurements necessary to make a pair of lasts to exactly duplicate her feet—but here she stopped in the entrance and just stared.
Hats—she had never seen such hats, except in pictures. Enormous cartwheel picture-hats, hoods, riding hats, straw hats, little bits of netting and feathers that could hardly be called a hat, plain, loaded with everything under the sun.
“I’ll be back in an hour, m’gel,” Reggie said, patronizingly. “I expect by that time, you’ll have just gotten started.”
By that point, an attentive young woman in a neat skirt and shirtwaist had come up to them. “Whatever she wants, and put it on Madam Arachne Chamberten’s account,” he told the assistant, and took himself off, leaving Marina in her hands.
Marina shook herself out of her daze, and determined that, although it was unlikely she was going to escape with only the single hat she had promised Reggie, she was going to keep her purchases down to only what she needed. She faced the eager assistant. “I’m in full mourning,” she said firmly. “So we will not be purchasing anything frivolous. I need a riding hat. And a foul-weather hood, or something of the sort—”
“Yes, indeed, miss,” the assistant said with amusement, sounding fully confident that the very opposite was going to happen.
No you don’t—she swore to herself, despite the fact that her eyes kept going to a particularly fetching straw for summer.
When Reggie returned, she was waiting for him—with only a single hatbox. Granted, there were three hats in it, but she had managed to select items that fit together neatly so as to all fit in a single box. It had been a narrow escape, but she’d done it.
“One hat?” Reggie asked incredulously, staring at the box. “One hat? You’re escaping this Aladdin’s cave with one hat?”
“No,” she admitted. “Three small ones.”
“It’s one box. It counts as one hat. My heart fails me!” He clutched theatrically at his chest, and the assistants giggled over his antics, stopping just short of flirtation with him—probably because the milliner’s eye was on them.
“Off to the bookshop, then,” he said, “Then luncheon at the Palm Court, and the old firm, then homeward bound.” He scooped up her, her hat- and glove-boxes, and carried them all off to the waiting cab.
If there was one blot on the day so far, it was that Madam seemed to have accounts everywhere, and not a single actual penny had changed hands, so Marina hadn’t been able to say something like “Oh, I’ll take care of it while you visit the tobacconist,” and keep back a shilling or so for herself.
The same case proved to hold at the bookshop—which was the biggest such establishment that Marina had ever seen, and had actual electric lights, which had been turned on because of growing overcast that threatened rain. She tried very, very hard not to stare, but it was extremely difficult, and she couldn’t help but wish for such a thing at Oakhurst.
Not that it was going to be possible for years, even decades yet. Electricity hadn’t come anywhere near the village, which didn’t even have gas lighting either. It would be paraffin lamps and candles for some time, she suspected.
“Electric lights,” she said wistfully. “What a magical invention!”
“We’ve gas at the pottery,” Reggie said, giving close attention to the electrical lamps, which burned away the gloom with steady light not even gas could rival. “I wonder if this is more efficient, though. I believe I’ll look into it.”
Since he seemed more interested in the lamps than in books, she left him there, and penetrated deep into the recesses of the closely set shelves. Bewildered, she was not, but dazzled, she was. It was one thing to encounter a wealth of books in a private library like that of Oakhurst—such collections were the result of the work of generations, and (not to put too fine a point upon it) a great many of the resulting volumes stored in such libraries were of very little use to anyone other than scholars. Often enough you couldn’t, daren’t read them, for fear of them crumbling away, the pages separating as you tried to turn them. But here were twice or three times that number, all of them eminently readable, in modern editions, brand new. A feast—that was what it was! A feast for the mind…
It was consideration of how much she could carry and not anything else that led her to limit her selection. She decided that since she wanted some volumes anyway, there was no harm in feeding Reggie’s assumptions about her. So in her chosen stack there was some poetry, and some novels, and some very interesting volumes that Elizabeth had recommended, books that raised an eyebrow on the clerk who was tallying them up. He didn’t say anything though, and Reggie was deep in another flirtation with a lady wearing one of those frothy confections of lace and velvet that made her wilt with envy, knowing how silly she would look in it, at the front of the store. And when he finally did make his way to the till, he picked one of the books up and looked at the title with no sign of recognition, anyway.
“Madam Arachne Chamberten’s account,” he said as usual. “Have the parcel made up with this young lady’s name on it and send it to the station to catch the afternoon train to Eggesford. The four-fifteen, that would be. Have the porter stow it in our compartment. And here—” he handed over the hat- and glove-boxes. “Send these along with it, there’s a good fellow.”
“All but this—” Marina said, taking one of the poetry books out at random, mostly because it was small and fit in her reticule. Just in case, she wanted to have something with her to read. Reggie might choose to abandon her someplace for a while.