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Today, a handsome burgundy waistcoat with fine gold buttons adorned his person, its high collar accentuating his firm chin, delicate embroidery his broad chest, while jet-black coat, buckskins and shiny top-boots completed an effortless poise and immense power.
“Why do you like these birds so much?” he enquired.
“Many reasons – their colouring, grace, feathers and so forth, but also flight. I oft yearned to be a bird when young. To feel the sky rushing about me, to escape whenever and wherever I wished, to see the land so far below. I have lived a life based on theory rather than experience thus far, and to be a bird would be to experience…everything. To travel anywhere.”
“‘Unpath’d waters, undream’d shores’.”
Matilda winched a brow. “From another discarded theatre print, Mr Hawkins?”
His lips twitched. “Litter, Miss Griffin, is the very menace of London.”
They sauntered the room, but Matilda’s mood struggled to lighten, not even when Chloe and her friend arrived, arms windmilling about and cheeks as red as roses, having discovered the bed in Napoleon’s carriage.
“It’s beneath the coachman’s seat,” Chloe gushed. “There’s a bedstead of steel and a writing desk, a gold booze case and a hand basin – all with a big N inscribed, in case he lost them.”
“Which considering they are all housed in Piccadilly, he most certainly did,” said Mr Hawkins wryly. “Now, I believe Gunter’s ices are in order. The girls, I’m sure, have worked hard at their lessons.” Chloe nodded; Modesty’s eyes darted to her toes. “And Miss Griffin…” Matilda glanced up. “Needs a little cheer.”
“But your meeting?”
“A duke can wait, Miss Griffin, but strawberry ices melt.” And he cast her a wink.
A curl of joy seeped through Matilda’s doldrums.
No one had ever been thoughtful of her feelings or aware of her mood. Her confidantes considered her shrewd, level-headed and never one for succumbing to wayward emotion; her parents had purely been interested in her tutelage and Astwood viewed her as a commodity to be sold.
But Mr Hawkins had sensed her sadness…and sought to alleviate it.
A muscled ex-prizefighter he may be, but solicitude and quiet perception underpinned his nature – a man as deep and unfathomable as the hieroglyphics in the Egyptian Hall.
* * *
The silver spoonlifted and tilted to rosy lips, strawberry ice teetering, and then, as Seth’s governess consumed the sweet, she sighed her pleasure.
He shifted uncomfortably and leaned as near as he dare in a tea shop. “How is the ice, Miss Griffin?”
Those lips curved, which was all he could see with the veil covering to just below her nose, a tantalising glimpse of forbidden fruit.
“Not plebeian in the least, Mr Hawkins. I’d say positively patrician.”
Seth chuckled, but caught a glimpse of his daughter watching him with a thoughtful expression as she licked her spoon, so he nonchalantly drew back.
As luck would have it, this little place on Berkeley Square was relatively empty for once, and they’d managed to nab a table in the corner. No perusal of the menu had been needed for Chloe and her friend, as in the past they’d plundered all the ices and now had their favourites. Miss Griffin, however, had spent an inordinate amount of time dallying over each option, asking questions as to sweetness and acidity.
She’d plumped for the strawberry with mint flecks.
Seth himself had solely ordered a cup of strong coffee in order to fortify himself for an irate duke. Yet he still couldn’t find it within himself to regret this visit to Gunter’s – helpless to do otherwise after he’d listened to Miss Griffin tell of her love for the birds, her wish to view them full of life…and then her sudden awareness that she may never be granted such a wish.
He’d seen dreams, both minuscule and immense, shattered before: respected fighters who’d lost their last chance at a championship; wives whose soldier husbands had not returned from battle. Even the starving dogs that slunk from the butcher’s back door when they realised there would be no bones that week.
No matter the circumstance, wealth or poverty, everyone had dreams. And Miss Griffin’s, he realised, were to travel – to see the birds she so adored. Foolish dreams, some might claim for a genteel lady turned governess, but no dreams were foolish – as that was rather the point.
Yet when one thought a dream might no longer be possible, a sadness eclipsed the joy in life, a loss that had no reality.
He remembered losing a fight when Chloe had been young. Recalled trudging home, certain his dream of the Academy was an absurd delusion.
Betty had taken one look at him and shoved a beef pasty in the ancient range oven, and Chloe, with that innate knowledge of a child, had hugged his knee. Betty’s husband had arrived to debate his defeat and how to strengthen for the next fight, and his old friend, Kian, had barrelled through the door with a keg of ale.
And with their good cheer and optimism, the future had brightened, his soul had arisen and all of a sudden, everything had seemed possible.
Dreams may fade, new ones arise, they may evolve or stay ever constant, but they made life worth living – be they others’ or your own, trivial or ambitious, serious or foolish.
All dreams should be treasured.
“Thank you, Mr Hawkins. I’ve had a wonderful day.”
And Seth turned to smile at his governess.
