An entry for the
2021 On The Job
contest.
Please be aware that this tale, however well it ends, includes some light bondage and an overwash of reluctant consent. If such things disturb you, please feel free to look at one of the many other good stories here. But, a gentle hint, don't be too quick to bail. It really does belong here.
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Brick and brass defined the narrow shopfront, the former regularly brushed to remove the omnipresent city soot, the latter carefully polished on a frequent basis. The presentation exuded confidence, quality, a meticulous attention to detail. The shelves inside the barred display window had been emptied for the evening and part of the interior of the shop could be dimly seen beyond. Gold letters above the window proclaimed
Marks & Son, Jewellers,
with, in smaller letters,
Estb 1827.
It was, in the trade, a name to be reckoned with.
The slim, furtive form outside the door looked through the fog in both directions before reaching out with a gloved hand to ring the bell. From somewhere, church bells began to toll their hour.
The bell rang inside the small shop, insistently, persistently. After a moment, the heavy door swung open an inch, stopped by a heavy security chain. She could feel herself being examined through the gap.
There was a low gasp from within and the door closed suddenly. She could hear the chain rattle inside and the door was suddenly yanked all the way open. Inside was a tall man, a lit paraffin lamp in his hand.
"Lady Darby!" the man inside said anxiously, "Are you all right? Is there anything the matter? The time..." The man seemed shaken with surprise. He tried to peer past her into the darkness.
"May I come in, Mr. Marks?" The voice was soft, low in volume.
"Oh! Of course, my lady, of course!" The man pressed himself against the wall as she slipped past him.
Closing the door, Marks held up the lantern in his hand. Hurriedly, he scurried about, lighting other lamps. She was amused to see him dressed in slippers and a housecoat, although respectable black trousers could be seen underneath.
Turning, he saw the woman standing in the middle of the shop, her hands at her waist.
"Please, my lady, please sit down. Forgive my confusion; I had not expected any... patrons at this hour."
Under his apparent confusion, the man was quietly appreciating the woman's dress. He could trust this woman to follow the dictates of fashion. No, not follow; people of her quality rarely followed. They led, they
created
the trend. Marks would never understand recent changes in women's fashion, but he approved of what he was seeing.
The woman's dress was in one sense more ornate than those in past years, in another much simpler. The preposterous bustle of former years had been shed, the shoulders and sleeves were narrower. The fabric was different, too, complex and heavily embroidered. Blue silk flowed like a waterfall from neck to ankles, clinging to the feminine form beneath it, emphasizing a proud bosom and proper womanly hips. For her waist to be that small, he mused, the woman had to be wearing a corset, but, still, the design looked far more comfortable than those of preceding decades. While yielding to the dictates of Victorian morality, it was feminine, delicate and definitely showed off its wearer to best advantage.
A small smile on her face, the woman settled gently into a chair left just for such visitors.
"Please, my dear Mr. Marks, do sit down. I must apologize for intruding without notice."
"The presence of a lady such as yourself can never be an intrusion," he said. The woman smiled at the sincerity in his voice.
Looking about, the man settled in another chair, then remembered his manners.
"Would your ladyship care for some tea? Some port, perhaps? I have..."
She held up her hand. "No, thank you, Mr. Marks. You are most kind, but my business is urgent and I only have a short while."
A shadow fell on the shop window, a policeman on his patrol perhaps. The woman turned her head away, looked at a clock on the shop wall.
"It is indeed late!" she exclaimed. "I am sorry."
"It is of no importance. How may I be of assistance to your ladyship?"
The woman rose, placed a leather case on his desk.
"I wish to sell these," she said, thumbing open the catches.
Marks' eyebrows rose at the sight of its contents. "You will forgive me," he said, moving to behind the desk to sit and examine them properly.
Pearls. There were hundreds of pearls, maybe thousands. There were pearl bracelets, pearl broaches and what seemed to be endless strings of necklaces. To some, all pearls seem the same, but a trained eye sees each individually, as individual people make up a crowd. He smiled to himself.
"Ah!" he breathed. "Spectacular." He fitted a loupe to one eye, brought two lamps in closer, pored through the bag. The woman waited patiently for him to finish his inspection.
"A remarkable collection, if I may say so. If your ladyship could give me a fortnight, even a week to organize things, one of the very reputable auction houses here in the city can..."
"I haven't a week, Mr. Marks," the woman interrupted. "I must be on the Dover ferry at dawn tomorrow. It must be tonight."
He shrugged. It was a token of his perplexity that he would so gesture in front of a woman of her rank.
"Lady Darby," he said, apologetically, "pray forgive me, but if your noble family is in need of cash tonight, a note from your esteemed father to one of the directors of his bank would surely..."
"My father!" she said scornfully. "It is my father's mad, ceaseless gambling that has brought our house to this state! No, Mr. Marks, I implore you, it must be tonight."
"But..."
Her voice was bitter in tone and not much above a whisper. "My father has agreed to settle his debts by giving me in marriage to a manufacturing magnate, a tradesman! He has sold me, his only child! No, Mr. Marks, I must to the continent, someplace out of his reach. And it must be tonight."
"I do have some funds here, of course," he said, "but I doubt I could, tonight, give your ladyship more than 10 per cent of what such finery is fairly worth."
"I will take whatever you can give me, Mr. Marks."
The man thought for a second. He peered at the bounty on the desk, leaned forward, frowned.
"Odd," he said.
He leaned forward to examine the pearls.
"This one, my lady," he said, "Can you see it?"
Uncertain, bending forward over the other side of the desk, the woman put her hands on the desktop to balance herself.
Swift as a snake, his hands lashed out. His strong left hand held her hands together, palm to palm, while his right hand swirled a long string of pearls two, three, then four times around her wrists, then one again between her palms. It had taken but a second, but the girl could not have been more securely held by police handcuffs. As he sat back in his chair, a small revolver appeared in his hand.
So small as to be almost swallowed up in his hand, the thing was clearly still a lethal threat. Its muzzle seemed to her to be as large as a manhole; her eyes were drawn to it as into the depths of a deep valley.
Shocked, her slender wrists fought for an instant with the improvised manacles before her eyes swept from the gun up to his face. There was a look of wary satisfaction on his face.
"Are you insane?" she hissed, her face pale with outrage. "Do you forget who you are dealing with?"
"Only partially," he said, quietly, seriously.
"I do know who I am
not
dealing with." He smiled now at the look on her face, continued. "I am very certain that I am
not
dealing with Lady Patricia Alexandria Margaret Darby de Clare."
The young woman started to sputter a protest, became silent. He could see her indignation seething, but tightly controlled.
"I have two interesting bits of trivia for you," he smiled.
"The first was a titteration of not-quite-scandal in the gossip papers perhaps 18 months ago. Do you remember that?"
He leaned back into his chair. His eyes fell on the weapon still in his hand. Almost as an afterthought, he eased the hammer down to a half-cock position and dropped it into a voluminous pocket.
The girl sat glaring at him, fury on her face, her tethered hands in her lap.
"No? Well, let me remind you. Lady Darby had quite by chance learned of an impoverished widow, a very distant relative of an almost-forgotten cadet branch of the de Clare family. The most remarkable thing about this woman was her almost fairy-tale resemblance to the enchantingly lovely Lady Darby herself. Height, weight, form, hair, the shape of nose and chin - even gait and posture - all were identical. And Lady Darby, generous, sentimental gentlewoman that she is, could hardly bear to see, in effect, herself reduced to such straights."
"And thus engaged her as personal attendant and companion," the girl said. "I remember."
"Their similarity," he continued, "was such that Lady Darby actually starting sending the woman to her seamstress for fittings instead of spending the time it took in person. Quite an extraordinary resemblance."
His smile became still brighter. "It was that small titbit that brought the second woman's existence to the attention of the press. Needless to say, that revelation cost the seamstress her position in Lady Darby's household."
The girl, her face seemingly calmer, said nothing.
"The second thing," he continued, more confidently now, "is something the yellow press overlooked, one subtle difference between two otherwise-identical women."
The girl just stared at him, caught now but hardly surrendering.
"You see," he said, "I myself restrung these very pearls for Lady Darby two years ago. At the time, I was struck quite forcefully by the amazing blue colour of her eyes. And yet here I am, again face to face with the beauteous Lady Darby, but this time with grey eyes.
"Curious, don't you think?
The woman lifted her chin a little in defiance.
"Even more curious, our not-quite-right Lady Darby is, unannounced and in the still of the night, trying to sell me £50,000 worth of pearls, on the flimsiest of reasons. Moreover, despite knowing the heavy loss a hurried sale will bring, she is still demanding an immediate cash payment."
