“Her mind was all disorder. The past, present, future, everything was terrible.”
—JANE AUSTEN, MANSFIELD PARK
Six weeks later
“You can’t—it’s too risky,” Damaris hissed. “What if you’re caught?”
“I don’t have a choice,” Abby whispered back. “We haven’t a penny, and the doctor won’t see her otherwise.” She glanced across to where her sister now tossed and turned on a straw pallet on the floor of their attic room, her normally bright golden hair dull in the pale moonlight. Jane lay oblivious. She was muttering, delirious. On the edge of death.
On another pallet beside her, Daisy slept—it was her turn. The two girls and Abby had been tending Jane for two days now, taking it in turns to sleep.
All their bright dreams lay shattered. Work had been harder to get than they’d thought, food more expensive, rent dearer. Only Damaris had regular work, painting plates in a pottery. She’d be paid at the end of the week, but Jane was sick now. . . .
Abby looked out across the rooftops of London, her gaze returning again and again, like a tongue probing a sore tooth, to the window on the second floor of the grand house behind them.
The window was open, as it had been every day and night since they’d moved there.
A seventeenth-century mansion on the Strand. What might it contain? A few small valuable items nobody would miss?
Nobody was in residence—only a skeleton staff. At night, no lights shone in the main part of the house, only in the domestic quarters where the servants were.
That open window was temptation, a taunt, an open invitation.
All evening, ever since the idea had come to her, Abby had found herself mentally plotting the course she could take—down the drainpipe, along the top of the wall, up to the second floor with the aid of another drainpipe, and then it was just a stretch to the open window.
Was it breaking and entering if a window was already open?
She shook her head. Semantics. Whatever she called it, the punishment—if she were caught—was transportation. Or worse.
But if she did nothing . . . She glanced across the room.
“Oh, Papa, forgive me,” she whispered. All those years of anger she’d felt toward him for getting himself killed, for leaving it to twelve-year-old Abby to somehow hold the family together, Mama fading before their eyes with some dreadful, wasting illness, and little Jane only six years old.
Now Jane twisted on her pallet, muttering with fever, hovering on the edge of death, and Abby understood now what had driven Papa to do what he did. Desperation.
Because if the risk paid off . . .
She turned back to the window. The first dry night in a week. Clouds scudded by, riding the light breeze. The moon cast shifting shadows. Perfect conditions. Fate beckoning.
Fate twisted on such frighteningly slender threads.
She pulled on the breeches she’d borrowed earlier in the day. It was just a matter of screwing her courage to the sticking place. . ..
“So you’re really going to do it?” Damaris whispered.
Abby nodded. “I’ll be back soon. Take care of her.”
“Good luck, Abby.” Damaris returned to Jane’s bedside.
With damp palms Abby raised the sloping attic window and climbed out onto the roof. She paused, her gaze sweeping the horizon. Chimney pots, a few still smoking gently, and the sharp angles of rooftops as far as the eye could see. Between the houses she could see the silver gleam of the river, could smell it on the breeze.
How many years since she’d climbed a tree? Surely one didn’t forget. She carefully inched along the sloping slate roof until she reached the drainpipe. It was old, and rusty in places. Pray that it would hold.
Clinging to the pipe, she climbed down to the next level, then edged her way along until she reached the place where the back of the building met the side wall. It was just a matter of stepping between the shards of glass embedded in the wall. Lucky her feet were narrow and her balance good.
She had rehearsed this in her mind. She could do it.
Taking a deep breath, she set out across the back wall. The brisk night wind sliced through her thin garments. It was supposed to be summer, but it was cold, so cold. She ignored it. Steady, stay steady. One foot after the other. Watch out for the glass. Don’t look down.
Pounding heart. Shallow breaths. Don’t think about the height, the broken glass. Balance was all. It was no different from walking on a line drawn in chalk. Nearly there. Three more steps . . . two . . . and then she was on the other side. Just one small jump to reach the other house now. She jumped, teetered and clung to the wall, her fingernails scrabbling at the stone in desperation. Steady now. Deep breaths. See, it was easy. Now one last climb, the pipe that ran up right beside the open window on the second floor.
The sash window was stiff, but she managed to push it up some more. She leaned in, listened, checked. Not a sound. A bedchamber. She could see the heavy hangings of the bed, an ornate wardrobe, a dressing table. No sign of life.
She swung one leg over the sill, heaved and she was in. She crouched a moment in the darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, breathing deeply until her racing heart slowed.
Now to seek what she had come for. She crept toward the dressing table.
“Have you come to kill me?” The hoarse whisper coming out of the darkness almost stopped Abby’s heart. She swung around, scanning the room, braced to flee. Nothing moved, only shadows lit by the faint shimmer of moonlight from the windows where she’d pulled back the curtains. No sign of anyone.
“I said, have you come to kill me?” It came from the bed. Sounding more irritated than frightened.
“No, of course not!” Abby whispered back. She tiptoed closer to the bed, straining her eyes in the darkness. What she’d taken for a bundle of clothes piled on the bed was an old woman lying awkwardly, fallen between her pillows, her bedclothes rumpled in a twist.
“You’re a gel. Wearing breeches, but I can still tell you’re a gel.”
“Yes.” Abby waited. If the woman screamed or tried to raise the alarm she’d dive out of the window. It was risky, but better than being hanged or transported.
“You’re not here to kill me?”
“No.”
“Pity.”
Abby blinked. “Pity?”
“A dog in my state would be put out of its misery with a bullet.” There was a pause. “You don’t have a bullet, do you?” Said with an edge of hopefulness.
“No, and even if I did, I wouldn’t shoot you.” She wouldn’t—couldn’t shoot anyone.
The old lady sighed. “So you’re just here to steal?”
“Y—er—” Abby bit her lip. The bald truth of it made her uncomfortable.
“I doubt there’s anything left to make it worth your while.”
By now, Abby’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom. The old woman was right. The room contained a lot of heavy furniture, thick with dust, and not very much else. No polished silver bibelots or small, valuable ornaments, no strings of jewelry, and just one painting on the wall, a watercolor, fairly amateurish, of a young boy. Nothing that a desperate young woman could slip into a pocket and steal away with. Not even a valuable rug on the floor. No rug at all, only dust.
From the outside this house had looked quite grand, if rather old.
But the place reeked of neglect. Abby wrinkled her nose.
That wasn’t all it reeked of. The old woman stank. Clearly she’d been bedridden for some time, and whoever was taking care of her—well, if anyone ought to be shot—
“Could I have some water?”
“Of course.” Abby filled a glass from a jug on a side table.
The old lady reached for it, a trembling claw of a hand.
“Here, let me help you.” Abby slid an arm beneath the old woman’s shoulders, raising her so she could drink, holding the glass to her lips. She was all bones and skin, as light and frail as a bird.
She drank thirstily, the whole glassful. “Thank you,” she said with a gasp, and subsided weakly. “I needed that.”
Abby smoothed the pillows and tugged the bedclothes into a more comfortable arrangement. The old lady watched her from huge sunken eyes that glittered in the faint light.
“Odd sort of burglar you are. Breeches aside.”
Abby didn’t reply. She refilled the glass and set it on the table next to the bed, moving a tea tray out of the way.
“Beginner, are you?”
Abby said nothing. For an old, sick woman she was very acute.
The tray contained a spoon, a cup and a bowl of something that looked like wallpaper paste, dried and crusted around the rim. She picked it up and sniffed cautiously.
“Gruel.” The old woman pulled a face. “Disgusting muck.”
It certainly looked and smelled unappetizing. And old.
“How long has it been here?” Abby asked.
“Since this morning. They’ll bring more up tomorrow.” She sniffed. “I won’t eat that either.”
No wonder she was so thin and frail. “Who brings the food—your family?”
The old lady gave a snort of mirthless laughter. “Servants. Got to keep me alive, don’t they? Otherwise they won’t get paid.”
“You have servants?” Abby wasn’t sure she believed her. What kind of servants would leave their employer in this state?
She tiptoed to the door, opened it and peered out into the corridor. The chill night air hung still and silent, no sign of life. The floor was thick with dust here too. She crept down the corridor and looked into the next room. It smelled musty and unused. The furniture sat shrouded in dusty holland covers.
She checked every room along the corridor until she came to the stairs. All were the same: neglected, dusty, unused.
There couldn’t be servants. Nobody had cleaned here in months.
She returned to the old woman’s bedchamber. “Is there anything else I can get you before I leave, Mrs. . . ?”
The old lady held out her hand in a courtly gesture. “Davenham, Lady Beatrice Davenham, my dear. How do you do?”
Abby took the old lady’s hand, started to introduce herself, “Miss—” and just in time recalled her circumstances. “How do you do. I’m sorry, Lady Beatrice, but I can’t tell you my name.”
“Perfectly understandable, given your current profession. So, what are you going to do?”
“Do?” For a moment Abby couldn’t think what she meant.
“Well, you didn’t climb in my window just to bring me a glass of water, did you, Miss Burglar?”
“Oh, that. I don’t know.” Despair filled her throat. What was she going to do? Jane . . .
“You weren’t born to this life. You’ve the accent of a lady.”
Abby bit her lip.
“So why take such a risk? You must be desperate.”
Abby shrugged. She wasn’t going to admit or explain anything. Lady Beatrice might be physically incapacitated, but she was very sharp. And Abby, even though she hadn’t yet stolen a thing, had committed a serious crime.
All for nothing. There was nothing here to take. Sick dread washed over her. If she couldn’t get the money for the doctor . . . She had to get back to Jane.
“Lady Beatrice, I have to go now,” she whispered, for all the world as if she were taking leave after paying a morning call.
A three a.m. morning call.
She hesitated. “Is there anyone I could contact for you? The doctor, perhaps? How long since he was here?” A doctor would surely come for a titled old lady, even if she had no money. Surely?
Lady Beatrice shrugged thin shoulders. “Weeks? Months? Don’t remember.”
“What about family? Is there someone I could contact on your behalf?”
“No family left. Just my nephew, Max, in India or the spice islands or some such foreign place.”
“I could write to him if you had an address.”
She dismissed Max with a wave of her hand. “It wouldn’t make any difference. He’s been gone for years. He hasn’t even written in . . . I don’t know how long.”
“Friends, then? You must have friends you could call on for help.”
Lady Beatrice snorted. “I haven’t had a caller in . . . I don’t remember . . . months? Everyone’s forgotten me.” A sliver of pale moonlight caught the gleam of a tear as it slid slowly down the withered cheek. She scrubbed it fiercely away. “But I don’t need anyone. I’m all right as I am.”
Abby didn’t bother to contradict her. It was obvious to both of them that Lady Beatrice was far from all right, but a person’s pride was to be respected. “Surely there’s someone I could write to.”
“There’s no one. I’ll die soon enough and then I’ll be no trouble to anyone.” A sigh wheezed out of her. “I’m sorry your visit was in vain, Miss Burglar.” She lifted a wizened claw, held it up against the faint light from outside and looked at her fingers as if puzzled. “Don’t know where my rings went. You would have been welcome to them.”
“Thank you,” Abby whispered, patting the old lady’s hand. “Now I really must leave. Good-bye, Lady Beatrice, take care.”
“Good-bye, my dear, thank you for calling on me.” As gracious as if Abby had indeed made a morning call.
Morning. It was almost dawn. Birds were waking, chittering noisily in the half dark. They said people often died just before the dawn. Mama had.
Her throat tight with dread, Abby rapidly made her way down the drainpipe and back across the wall. She raised the attic window and wriggled back inside.
Damaris, wrapped in a shawl against the chill, crouched beside Jane’s pallet. Jane was no longer tossing or muttering. She lay on her pallet, still and silent. As Abby dropped to the floor the other girl rose and turned toward her. Her face was wet with tears.
A fist closed around Abby’s heart. “Oh, no . . . Oh, Jane . . .”
“Her fever’s broken,” Damaris whispered. “She’s sleeping. She’s going to be all right.”
The illness that had come on so rapidly went almost as fast, and by the end of the next day, Jane had woken from a long, healing sleep and was able to sit up and talk and drink a little soup.
Unfortunately Damaris had let slip to Jane and Daisy what Abby had done. Jane was shocked. “Abby! You didn’t! You went out to steal?”
Abby glanced at Damaris, who mouthed a silent apology. Abby shrugged. “You were so ill, I had to do something.”
“You climbed across all them rooftops? Over that wall? In the dark?” Daisy shook her head, half in admiration, half disapproving. “I never would’ve believed it, miss. I thought you was respectable to the backbone.”
Abby flushed. She’d thought so too, until recently. “Respectability is a lot easier when you have money.”
“But what if you were caught?” Jane said.
“We had no money, Jane. I had to do something.”
“Have you forgotten what happened to Papa? What if you’d been shot? And all for nothing.” She dashed a tear away.
Abby bit her lip. There was no way to explain how desperate she’d felt. Jane had only a hazy memory of her illness, and now, even for Abby, with her sister’s eyes bright and clear instead of clouded with fever, that desperation felt almost like a bad dream.
“Promise me you’ll never do such a risky thing again,” Jane said. “Thank goodness nobody saw you.”
Abby dropped her gaze, but not quickly enough.
Jane gasped. “Abby, no! Someone saw you? Who?”
“An old lady—Lady Beatrice Davenham—but it’s all right; she won’t tell.”
“How do you know?” Jane demanded.
“Did she see you climb back in here?” Damaris asked.
“She’ll report you,” Daisy said. “We’ll have to leave this place.”
“No, no, truly she won’t tell a soul,” Abby assured them. “She even offered me her rings, only she didn’t have any.”
“So she’s barmy?” Daisy said hopefully.
“No, quite the opposite, at least she seemed so to me at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if she might be deluded after all.”
She told them about Lady Beatrice. “And I can’t tell whether she’s living in that big old house alone, ill and poverty-stricken, or whether she really has got servants who are neglecting her dreadfully. Someone gives her gruel, but it’s awful and she doesn’t eat it. Nobody cleans her room—it’s thick with dust—and they certainly don’t wash her; she stinks. And if there are servants, they leave her in the dark from dusk until dawn, and her water jug was not even on the bedside table, within reach.”
There was a short silence; then Damaris said, “You liked this old lady, didn’t you?”
Abby nodded. “There’s—I don’t know—something gallant about her. You should have seen the way she introduced herself.” She glanced at her sister. “It could have been the queen’s drawing room, Jane, she was so elegant and assured. But she’s desperately unhappy. She asked me to shoot her, to put her out of her misery.”
The girls fell silent.
Daisy frowned. “You’re not thinking of doin’ something stupid again, are you, Miss Abby? I mean, we can’t even help ourselves at the moment.”
Abby sighed. “I know. Things are desperate enough for us without taking on anyone else’s troubles. But I can’t stop thinking about her. At least we all have one another; she’s alone and ill and bedridden and in desperate trouble.”
“You can’t go back there,” Jane said quickly.
“I can’t leave her like that, Jane,” Abby said. “I just can’t. If you’d seen her, you’d feel the same.”
Jane gave her a troubled look. “But what can you do?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to call on her tomorrow and see what I can find out. Then I’ll think of something.”
“Nothing illegal?” Daisy warned.
Abby smiled. For a girl with such a shady background, Daisy was remarkably straitlaced. “No, I promise.” Once had been nerve-racking enough.
“And what are we going to do?” Damaris said quietly. “It’s obvious the plan to go to Bath won’t work. We’re worse off now than we were six weeks ago.”
They fell silent.
Damaris said, “I have no claim on any of you. If I leave—”
“And me,” Daisy added. “I’m nothing to any of you either, just—”
“No!” Abby cut her off. “The two of you gave me my sister back in the first place. And since Jane’s illness I’m even more determined we must stay together. I don’t know what I would have done without you. What if it had been you who caught the fever, Damaris? Or Daisy? And you’d been alone?”
Each girl’s face showed she knew what that would have meant.
Abby linked her arms through theirs. “I know things are about as bad as they can be, but please, no matter what, let us stay as a family, as sisters?”
They glanced at one another and nodded. “Sisters.”
“But not if you reckon on doing anything against the law,” Daisy said firmly. “I ain’t never been a thief and I ain’t starting now. I don’t want to get transported to the other side of the world.”
Abby laughed. “Don’t worry; there’s no danger of that.”