Mr. Frampton’s hopefulness flickered at this chilly breeze of truth. “I admit my finances, though not my faculties, are insufficient for the challenge. I had thought to give up my music lessons by now—instead, I think I shall have to take on a few more students, to make ends meet. I was hoping the royalties from the Oléron translation would allow for at least a first attempt.”
Catherine’s face was carefully neutral as she asked, “Did Mr. Hawley tell you the Oléron was expected to bring in a great profit?”
Mr. Frampton turned a ring around and around on his right hand. “He stated that as an official Polite Science Society publication, and recommended pointedly inPolite Philosophies, it would be sure to sell a more than respectable number of copies. ‘With my imprimatur as president,’ et cetera. He waxed almost poetic about it.”
“Hmm,” was all Catherine said.
Lucy narrowed her eyes. She knew an unspoken thought when she heard one. “Is he wrong to want to encourage Society members to purchase the translation?”
“No,” Catherine replied calmly. “But if he is only addressing the volume to the Society, and not to the general public, I wonder exactly how much profit would even be possible.”
“Iwonder how much of any profit would have gone to you, in return for putting up the original funds.” Lucy sniffed, and attacked a scone with some ferocity.
Catherine dropped her eyes and said nothing—as she usually did, whenever money was mentioned. Oh, she was quick to offer support, as when she’d invited Lucy to stay and finish her translation, but since that first conversation she had never gone into detail about what such support actually meant: timelines, funds allocated, profits divided, that sort of thing. Lucy had tried to ask once or twice and been deflected so elegantly she hadn’t realized until later.
Evidence: Catherine was uncomfortable talking about money.
Conclusion: none possible yet. More observation was apparently required. It was a delicate question at the best of times—more so when you had just started sharing a bed with your benefactor.
As Lucy swallowed her unease, Mr. Frampton finished his tea and set the lizard cup aside. “I’m afraid I must bid you farewell, my lady,” he said. “I’m attending a second Society lecture this evening, and there are a few letters I should reread in advance of hearing their author speak.” He rose from his chair and paused, head tilted thoughtfully to one side. “I must ask: Have you written to inform M. Oléron about your translation?”
Lucy shook her head. “I had thought to wait until I had more of it worth sending to him first. I admit, I’ve added so much material that it’s possible it’s no longer strictly a translation. More of a supplementary text.” She smiled ruefully. “A phrasebook, rather than a dictionary.”
“You should send those pages sooner, rather than later,” Mr. Frampton warned. “Depend upon it, Mr. Hawley will be doing so. If he’s able to claim the Society’s translation has the original author’s stamp of approval...”
Lucy managed to keep her temper until Mr. Frampton had departed, whereupon she set down her teacup with a vicious click and began pacing the length of the parlor. “How dare Mr. Hawley presume to know what’s best for everyone!” she cried. “How dare he think that science should be limited by his own stunted imagination!”
Catherine’s lips curved as she leaned back against the sofa. “It seems that you have caught some of Mr. Edwards’s ideas about imagination being necessary to science.” She stirred her second cup of tea. “Many young women in the city have found him quite sensational.”
Lucy waved this aside. “Oh, yes, he’s handsome enough.” She stopped, catching an edge in Catherine’s tone that made her uneasy. “Do you think he’s wrong? Do you think that science is really so rigid as people like Mr. Hawley would have it?”
“It has certainly run roughshod over my life,” Catherine said. The quiet, factual way she said it made Lucy ache for her. “But no, my disagreement concerns something else. I appreciate Mr. Edwards’s praise of the power of imagination—but I object to the fact that he still would put that power into science’s service. He admires the arts, but only insofar as they can be made useful. But not all the great truths are scientific in nature.” She sipped her tea, her eyes distant with thought. “There is—there must be real value in a poem or a painting, for its own sake.”
Lucy sighed and sat down beside her on the sofa. “Or an embroidery pattern?” she asked, trailing her fingers over the scrolls stitched along the edge of Catherine’s bodice.
The countess laughed and leaned into the caress, but the corners of her eyes stayed tight. “We were speaking of high arts, I thought.”
Lucy nuzzled into the crook of Catherine’s neck. She smelled of lemon and bergamot and sugar: irresistible. The countess let out a pleased sigh as Lucy feathered kisses along her jawline. “Maybe we shouldn’t speak at all for a little while.” And for a little while, they didn’t.
Chapter Eight
The laggard spring became a tempestuous summer, ominously wet and chilly. Lucy, who hadn’t trained a telescope on the sky since coming to London, found herself feeling restless and earthbound. Mrs. Kelmarsh offered a welcome distraction by inviting them to something called the Friendly Philosophical Salon. It was a reading club for ladies, who gathered in the back room of a ramshackle bookstore in Paternoster Row: some older women of Mrs. Kelmarsh’s long acquaintance, some comfortably matron-aged like Catherine, a handful around Lucy’s years. A small closet in one corner provided a discreet dressing place for anyone who felt more at ease wearing (or changing out of) shirtsleeves, jacket, and breeches among friends; the chairs and couches were much mended, much sat-upon, and much less flexible than any of the minds in the room. Catherine and Lucy’s introductions were made swiftly and without fuss, and then the group erupted into a medical-philosophical debate about the potential physical location of the soul, clearly a cherished argument of long standing. Lucy joined in with a will and a sense of belonging she hadn’t felt since the gates of Cramlington had clanged shut behind her.
She was very near the end of the Oléron, but had not yet managed to pin Catherine down about money. “Finish the manuscript, then we’ll take it to Griffin’s and see about their terms,” the countess said.
To add to Lucy’s puzzlement, Stephen’s pointed letters on the subject of Lyme and returning to it suddenly switched tacks entirely. Apparently, instead, he was planning a journey to London himself.
“A few of Stephen’s friends have paintings to show in this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy,” Lucy explained to Catherine, “so they’ve all come down to town to celebrate. By which I mean argue, mostly. They’re impossible, but very amusing to listen to. Stephen’s invited me along for the afternoon.” She squirmed, worried that she would be outnumbered and vulnerable and a ready target for more of Stephen’s pressure. “I’d love you to join us.”
“Are you quite sure you want me to meet your brother?” The countess dropped her eyes, taking one of those shy turns that Lucy had hoped were becoming less and less frequent with time and affection. “Are you certain it’s wise?”
Catherine’s hesitance was understandable, but it still pricked all the tender spots of Lucy’s hopeful heart. “Stephen can be downright priggish where I am concerned, but he is far more liberal-minded to people who are not his sister,” Lucy said. “And a few of his friends are quite talented. Their paintings alone will certainly be worth the trip.”
So Lucy put on one of her gray gowns—livened up with a puce chevron trim in Eliza Brinkworth’s clever hand—and they drove to the lofty neoclassical pile of Somerset House on the River Thames.
The sky outside was lumpen with clouds, portending more rain, but Lucy didn’t pay this any mind. That was the one landscape she wasn’t here to view today. Bubbling with excitement, she slipped her arm through Catherine’s and led the countess up the curving flights of stairs and into the main Exhibition Room.
The space was busy with people, but the bright half-circle windows far up in the high ceiling made it feel airy despite the throng. Every inch of every wall was covered by paintings, small delicate landscape sketches shoved right up against huge portraits and elaborate history scenes with ornate frames. As the eye wandered up, row by row, the paintings tilted forward more and more, arcing as if they were a wave about to crest and crash down upon the throng of viewers in a flood of paint and canvas. Lucy watched Catherine’s head tilt back in wonder, and wished she dared press a kiss to the graceful column of her throat.
