Free Joan Smith by True Lady

Harrington soon returned her to gloom.
    “It was not Evans’s decision. The building is owned by a Mr. Patterson, you recall. He is a great man in the city. There’s no point thinking we could win a case against him. Neither would it be at all comfortable to go on living here, when everyone—even Miss Blythe and that nice civil servant—thinks we are ... like that,” she said decorously but with a very significant nod of her head.
    “That’s true,” her niece agreed reluctantly. “We cannot stand on the curb to discuss it. Let us go into our apartment to make plans at least.”
    “We cannot. That is, we could go in, perhaps, but the door has been taken off its hinges. Mr. Evans calls it a Kent Street Ejection, which must be the most degrading kind, by the sly way he said it. He says it is practiced in Kent Street in Southwark, when tenants fall into arrears on their rent. Anyone passing by would be free to look in at us and laugh or to come in off the street and pester us for that mailer.”
    “This is infamous,” Trudie railed impotently. “We paid our rent.”
    “He reimbursed me for the unused portion of it. I will not stay where we are so patently unwanted. Pray do not ask it, Trudie. Having to leave Walbeck Park and come up to London was bad enough, without having to be despised by our neighbors.” A tear gathered in Mrs. Harrington’s age-dimmed eyes as she spoke. She blinked it away, but it had been seen, and a terrible angry frustration began to build up in her niece.
    “All right. All right, Auntie,” she said, to calm her, but she would have revenge on whoever had done this to them. And who could it have been? Mr. Mandeville had heard the rumor as well. Mr. Mandeville—she would like to put the blame in his dish, but there hadn’t been time, unless he had begun the rumor last night. Was it possible?
    She stood for a moment considering what was best to be done. She was proud enough to share her aunt’s distaste for remaining in this apartment. Obviously they must take rooms elsewhere, find some other apartment to let, but it would be difficult to do with their two large trunks in tow. The trunks must be picked up by a carter, but till the carter arrived, they must be guarded. She had very little taste for standing on the curbstone to guard them herself.
    “Where are the Bogmans?” she asked.
    “In the kitchen, packing up what can be easily carried. There is no need to leave fifty pounds of flour behind, and a good leg of lamb, already dressed.” She continued with a longish list of items, which, while expensive to replace, could obviously not be hauled across London to another set of rooms, though the linen and silver and dishes certainly must be.
    “I’ll speak to the Bogmans,” Trudie decided.
    Mrs. Bogman said very firmly, “You ought to go to your brother. He’ll decide whether to hire a lawyer and go to court. I think it is that nasty Mrs. Rolfe as ought to be sued for a slanderous detraction.”
    “Someone ought to be, except that it would give us so much unwanted publicity. I really ought to consult with Norman, though. Bogman, could you look after our trunks and things while I take a quick trip over to Brighton? Have the things stored at a cheap hotel or inn near the edge of town, till I have discussed this with my brother.”
    “Why, you’ve more sense than him and his shatter-brained friends all put together, missie,” Bogman told her. “What would you want to talk to him for?”
    She drew a weary, uncertain sigh. “This may be a matter of honor, I fear, and Norman knows more about that than I do.”
    “ ‘Tis a sharp pity you hadn’t known sooner, and you could have got a drive with Lord Clappet, but it’s a short distance. You could be back by tomorrow. The wife and I will look after things here, missie. We’ll need a little blunt for the hire of the cart and room at the inn. Where can we leave word for you to know where we’ve gone to?”
    “Let me see.” She