Chapter Four
“The place is shipshape, Miss Letty.” Abel Pearce looked around the spa’s pump room with approval. “You have restored it to its former glory.”
A stocky fellow with thinning fair hair and an aggressively large mustache, Mr. Pearce was the largest landowner in Chuddums. Most of the businesses in the square were his tenants. The villagers treated him with deference due to his economic influence and his status as the head of one of Chuddums’s oldest families. When he and his wife Dorothy had stopped by on an unannounced visit, Letty had dropped everything to give them a tour, and Gigi had followed along.
“Thank you, sir.” Pride filled Letty’s voice, which echoed in the high-ceilinged space. “My greatest wish is to make my great-great-grandpapa proud.”
Gigi thought her friend had accomplished that and more. Once again, the pump room had an air of grandeur with large, sparkling windows and columns soaring to the upper gallery. Atop the columns were statues of Roman gods and goddesses. Jupiter, Hera, Minerva, Bacchus, Venus, and Mars formed a ring around the room, staring down at visitors with majestic grace. The parqueted wood floor had been polished to a gleam. At the far end, the pump, newly repainted a glossy black, was primed to dispense warm mineral water directly from the source.
“It isn’t easy living up to our esteemed ancestors,” Mr. Pearce said. “When my own great-great-grandpapa, Langdon Pearce, built his textile mill here, he brought prosperity to our village. He was great cronies with Tobias Caldecott, I’m told.”
“I remember my papa telling me the two had an entrepreneurial spirit in common,” Letty said fondly. “Apparently, your relative was the only one who didn’t laugh at mine when he announced his plans to build a spa, complete with a caldarium.”
“What is a caldarium?” Gigi cut in.
“A heated chamber,” Letty explained. “The Romans used them for relaxation and purification purposes. But they require a feat of engineering, and if my great-great-grandpapa ever started building one, it must have been destroyed by the fire that nearly claimed this place some eighty years ago.”
“You can’t blame a fellow for dreaming big, can you?” Mr. Pearce said heartily.
“Thanks to my husband’s generosity, Miss Letty,” his wife said in her nasally tone, “your wish to preserve your family legacy may indeed be coming true.”
A thin spike of a woman, Dorothy Pearce was possessed of an unshakeable faith in her own importance. Today she wore an excessively ruffled, flounced, and beribboned dress of fawn-colored velvet. Feathers exploded from the bonnet which sat atop her coal-black ringlets. Her outfit matched the ostentation of her husband’s, which included a blinding constellation of gold fobs and buttons.
“I have always appreciated Mr. Pearce’s support,” Letty said humbly.
Letty had told Gigi that, a few years ago, she had taken a sizeable loan from Mr. Pearce to keep her doors open. Since he was charging interest at the rate of twelve percent, he was hardly running a charity, despite what his wife was implying. Even with the spa’s current profitability, it would take Letty years to pay off what she owed.
Yet fate had given Letty an easy solution: a solicitor named Mr. Marvell, representing the interests of Empire Investment Co., had recently offered her a thousand pounds for the spa. Gigi had asked her eldest brother James, who had the financial brains in the family, to look into the company. All he could discover was that it had a history of purchasing failing businesses at low cost and selling them off for profit.
Progress at the expense of people, James had said with disgust. That seems to be the way of it with these industrialists and financiers.
If Letty had accepted that offer, she would be rich and carefree. Instead, she’d chosen to protect her family legacy. She believed in the value of the spa to the community and in Chuddums. From Gigi’s perspective, it was Mr. Pearce who owed Letty, not the other way around. Rumor had it that he was mired in debt due to years of vacancies and plunging land values, as well as his profligate lifestyle. There was fear that he might have to sell off his properties piece by piece, destroying the fabric of the village. Luckily, the spa was bringing commerce back…even if he and his wife were taking credit for the positive change.
“Chudleigh Bottoms is indebted to my husband,” Mrs. Pearce declared. “Dear Mr. Pearce has campaigned tirelessly on behalf of the village, touting its finer attributes to his influential friends in London. You have him to thank for your gala guest list, Miss Letty.”
Gigi had to bite her tongue because she had sent dozens of invitations to her family’s friends and acquaintances in Town, many of whom had promised to attend.
“I believe that is why my project to honor my husband as a living hero of this village was so well received,” Mrs. Pearce went on. “Indeed, Lady Georgiana, I was particularly gratified by your brother’s donation. Because of Lord Ethan’s generosity, the tribute to Mr. Pearce was constructed of the finest Peterhead granite.”
Since Gigi knew that Ethan would pay any amount to be rid of Mrs. Pearce’s company, she said blandly, “He was happy to contribute.”
“The presence of your family elevates our little village,” Mrs. Pearce gushed. “Will your parents, the marquess and marchioness, be returning soon?”
“Yes, ma’am. Mama and Papa are vacationing in the Cotswolds for a few weeks, but they promised to be back for the reopening of the spa.”
“How splendid.” Mrs. Pearce gave her a conspiratorial look. “Between you and me, Chuddums could use more of the Quality and less of, ahem, the other sort.”
Despite her discomfort, Gigi managed to keep her polite expression in place. This came from years of dealing with social climbers. She didn’t know which she found more irritating: Mrs. Pearce’s need to douse her with the butter boat or to put down decent folk like Letty.
“I must compliment your promenade dress en redingote,” Mrs. Pearce prattled on. “The salmon-pink merino paired with brown velvet piping is ever so becoming. It is from London, I assume? The work of Madame Dubois, perhaps? I’ve attempted to get on her waitlist several times, but, alas, it is always full.”
“Actually,” Gigi said brightly, “this dress is the product of our very own Mrs. Sommers. Is she not talented?”
Mrs. Sommers owned the village dress shop. She and Mr. Duffield, the draper, kept abreast of the latest fashions and ensured that Gigi’s locally made garments were as stylish as any from London. Gigi looked forward to her visits to the dressmaker not just because of the lovely clothes. Mrs. Sommers had an inexhaustible supply of nieces who cycled through her shop as assistants. The young women were lively, full of gossip, and obsessed with beaux and flirtations. Mattie, the current niece-apprentice, always had amusing stories to share.
“You should take your cue from this young lady, Mrs. Pearce.” Mr. Pearce winked at Gigi. “By patronizing our local shops, you’ll save me those outrageous bills from London. There’s nothing wrong with keeping the wealth here in Chuddums, eh?”
“Well, that was exhausting,” Gigi said.
