I carried the fug of Nancy’s cellar in my head all the way back to The Palace, that and the silence of Lok. As we came in through the door, Tan Seng held out a note. He didn’t say a word as I took in Telferman’s scrawl. The pair of them made me feel like a child sent to Coventry.
That note was like a bucket of cold water tipped over my head. It sharpened me up and cleared out the opium. I washed and changed, and then I went straight to Pearl Street. Lok came out with me again, but he still didn’t speak. Instead he walked three paces behind, herding me down Narrow Street like a bleedin’ sheepdog. All the way there I felt his eyes on my back. I didn’t have to turn round to see the look in them. He was waiting for me now in Telferman’s hall. The bench was so high his feet didn’t touch the floor.
‘Lady.’ Telferman stood up from his desk.
‘You’ve heard from her, then?’
‘No. I have not.’ He fiddled with the loop of shiny black ribbon round his neck.
My heart dropped like a stone down a well. ‘Then why call me here?’
‘Because I have heard from Dr Pardieu.’
The Beetle started to count along the silver keys threaded on the ribbon. He stopped when he found the one he was looking for.
‘Your grandmother is near the end, Lady Linnet. Pardieu informs me the remainder of her life can be measured in days, not weeks. Perhaps hours.’
‘Pardieu’s with her? She kept that old crow on even when she left Paradise?’
Telferman nodded and bent to unlock a drawer in his desk. ‘Like me, he has served Lady Ginger for many years. Your grandmother valued, values, his discretion. She would not allow anyone else to attend her. Most especially so now her time is near.’
I knew my grandmother was wearing out her mortality, but now it came to it I couldn’t imagine the light going out of those black bead eyes. Last time I saw her in that coach I got the impression she was gripping onto life tight as a miser with a sovereign in his fist.
‘How long have you known?’
‘Since Pardieu’s message arrived early this morning. Here.’
He took a fold of paper from the drawer and pushed it across the desk to me.
‘Forgive me, Lady, but you do not look entirely …’
I snatched the note. ‘Thank you, Mr Telferman. I am quite myself.’
The only person I knew who could answer those questions turning me about until I couldn’t see a straight way was likely to be laid out cold before I could speak to her. The paper in my hand trembled. Telferman stared at me. His face dialled something between sorrow and concern. He seemed to be about to make another remark of a personal nature, but then he thought better of it.
‘I will make arrangements immediately, Lady. The Brighton train would be best. It is the fastest and most direct route. We will need to change at Tunbridge Wells for Hastings, where we will be met.’
‘We? You’re coming along to hold my hand?’
He took his fob watch from a greasy pocket. ‘There are papers that must be signed. I am to take them to her. The evening train departs at five. There is still time to send word ahead.’
‘She’s not going to have me drugged and carted to her this time like a piece of furniture?’
He packed his fob away again and scratched the side of his nose in consideration. ‘It will not be necessary. Not now that the Abbey is to pass into your hands.’
He pointed at the note. ‘Read.’
I slammed it on the desk top. ‘It’s answers I want from her, Mr Telferman, not more bleedin’ property. That’s why I came here today. You promised to write and make it clear that I needed to see her.’
‘And I sent word as instructed, Lady Linnet. You may recall that I said it would be judicious to do so after what happened to the woman.’
‘The one they fished from the river, the one who delivered Joey’s note? Ramesh Das knew about that too.’ I stared down at my hand on the letter. There were still black smuts on my fingers. I balled it to a fist to hide the guilty stains. ‘It was him, wasn’t it? He told you what had happened to her. He gave you all the … details.’
Telferman nodded. ‘I understand that you have now met Mr Das. I trust that you are satisfied? We work in harmony to conduct different … strands of your affairs in Paradise.’
‘He runs the muscle and you run the books – something close to that anyway. Yes, I was satisfied. As a matter of fact, I trusted him straight off. What I can’t understand is why you didn’t introduce us back at the beginning. If he’s working for me like you do, that would have been the natural way of it.’
Telferman’s brows arched over the frame of his spectacles. ‘My colleague is somewhat eccentric. You’ve met him now, so I imagine you have an understanding of that. He believed that you would come to him when the time was right to do so and if the meeting was destined to occur. To be frank, I was beginning to wonder if that time would ever come but when that paint … ah …’
He stopped himself and patted some dust from a stack of papers to the right of the desk.
‘You were going to say when that painting appeared on his doorstep, weren’t you?’
Telferman nodded, but didn’t look at me. ‘Those vile images – all of them – were the crudest insults. They have been removed. These are early days. It is clear to me that someone is trying to undermine your authority, Lady Linnet.’
I nodded. ‘I know that all right. And I know who did them now – Lord Kite’s man, that’s who. He practically told me so himself.’
The Beetle frowned. The grey hairs of his spindly brows shot out and upwards giving another truth to my private name for him. ‘The Barons of London circle each other, but it has always been my understanding, from your grandmother, that they respect each other’s jurisdiction.’
‘I have the idea that respect is the last thing Lord Kite feels when it comes to me … or my brother. But I don’t have an idea of much else. I’m sick of secrets, Mr Telferman. Sometimes my head’s so full of winding passages and stairs that lead nowhere I get lost in there.’
I took up the note. ‘Now, let’s see what old Pardieu has to say.’
There must have been a time when that big black carriage was a fine thing, but that was before the moths had taken a liking to it. The tassels on the red curtains at the window hung in shreds and the fabric of the seat was torn, with great tufts of horsehair poking out like Sam Collins’s fringe. The smell of old leather and naphtha came strong. I couldn’t tell if the last was from the Beetle sitting opposite or from balls tucked around us. Nanny Peck had had a stock of them in Church Row. Much good it did. The only thing them moths didn’t have a taste for was her Sunday crinoline. Joey always said it proved they had an eye for female fashion.
Joey said a lot of things I should have paid more attention to.
I flattened my cheek against the window. It was dark now, but the moon was nearly full. It made the fields and the trees outside look like they was licked over with frost, but it was hot as a tanner’s pit inside that carriage, with a ripe smell to match.
As we bounced over a rut in the lane the Beetle’s hands tightened over the leather bag perched on his knees. He didn’t open his eyes. I knew he was awake, but it suited him not to have to talk. He’d played the same game in the train.
‘Lady?’ Tan Seng reached into his sleeve and took out something long and grey. For a moment I couldn’t make out what it was. There was a sharp crack as he flicked his wrist and the ivory fan clattered open.
‘Thank you.’ I took it from him, grateful for the coolness even though the air I wafted about was stale as a spinster’s trousseau.
Pardieu’s note was brief and to the point. His feathery scrawl sloped downward on the page like it didn’t have the vigour to keep itself straight.
There is little more I can do. The Lady knows this and understands that time is short. She asks that her granddaughter should be brought to her immediately. I urge you to make the necessary arrangements as quickly as possible. I cannot guarantee that she will be in a state to receive. I must warn you, her behaviour is erratic.
AP.
When I’d gone back to The Palace there’d been a long conversation – in Chinese so me and Peggy couldn’t follow – about who was going to come with me to the station and then on to … wherever it was we was all going now.
I say conversation, but it was more in the way of an argument – the first time I’d ever seen the brothers disagree. Lok got quite animated at one point, tapping his chest and flinging his hand in my direction in a manner that indicated that he thought he should be the one to accompany me. I thought I caught my grandmother’s name three times in the jumble of words. Tan Seng listened to his brother, his face completely blank, and then he bowed to me.
‘The Lady will decide.’
Lok turned and I saw the appeal in his eyes. I felt Tan Seng watching me too.
I wasn’t sure what to say. If it was my protection they were arguing over, it was a judgement of Solomon they were asking for, that being one of Nanny Peck’s most favoured tales for a rainy Sunday afternoon.
I couldn’t rightly put an age to either of them. Despite his tiny stature, I knew Lok was stronger than dock boys twice his size and likely a third of his age. And then there was Tan Seng. Tell truth, even though I was there I still couldn’t make sense of that business with the cabman. It happened in the space of a blink.
Point of fact I trusted them both when it came to matters of safety, but just then I got the distinct impression they were arguing about something else.
I looked at Peggy. She was standing at the foot of the stairs. The light from the fanlight over the doors caught her hair, burnishing up the chestnut running through the brown. She looked better every day – lush like a garden in May. I’d done right bringing her to live with me; it didn’t change what I’d done to Danny, mind, but it was something at least.
‘Can’t they both go with you, Kit?’ She stepped down onto the marble tiles of the hall and I saw the tips of her bare toes under the hem of her skirt. This was her home now.
‘I’m not leaving you here on your own, not overnight.’ I turned to Lok. ‘I’d like you to stay with her, please. If I knew you were here at The Palace with Peggy tonight I’d feel happy.’
I knew it would make Peggy happy too.
When Lok saw us off in the hall later that day he didn’t look happy. Just before we left, he spoke rapidly to his brother and handed him a small black box, flat it was, like something Lucca might use for his paint. Tan Seng took the box, nodded and placed his free hand on his brother’s arm. Now, that surprised me again – the pair of them never showed much in the way of affection to each other when I was around. Of a rule they bustled about at a careful distance like a couple of waiters carrying trays at a fancy hotel.
Lok looked down at Tan Seng’s hand and then he spoke softly – I heard my grandmother’s name again twice. He stepped away from his brother, bowed to me and went to the stairs leading down to the basement. It might have been the heat of the day, but as he disappeared I saw him swipe at a dampness on his cheeks.
The wheels caught another rut and I gripped the leather strap beneath the window to steady myself. We lurched to the left and the rusty seat springs grated and wheezed. The carriage had been waiting for us at the station, just as the Beetle had said.
As we stepped down from the train onto the platform the air came different – there was sea in the smoke now. I say the carriage was at the station, but actually it was at the end of an unlit tree-lined road two streets distant. Telferman led the way and I knew of a certainty he’d made this trip before.
There were two big greys harnessed at the front, the pair of them nodding their heads and kicking at the dust, impatient to be off. Even when we were close I couldn’t make out who was up on the box, on account of the hat rammed tight on his head and the shadow.
It was late now and the road was deserted. I scanned the crescent of tall white buildings screened by neat clipped hedges. I couldn’t see a light in any of the windows. Respectable Hastings folk obviously didn’t keep late hours. They kept roses, though; the sweet, fat scent of them caught me immediate as we turned the corner.
Tan Seng was silent and the Beetle moved with a surprising lightness. Apart from the tapping of my heels on the cobbles, the only sound was the miserable racket made by a single gull keening overhead. It put me in mind of the last time I’d been summoned by my grandmother. When I woke in that locked room, the only sounds had been the ticking of the clock and the yowling of the birds outside.
Telferman called up to the driver and stood aside to let me go first. As he opened the carriage door I saw that the scrolling letters ‘EWR’ painted in gold on the lacquer were peeling away. It must have been her name, my grandmother’s real name, I mean.
All those years I’d thought my mother’s name was Eliza Peck. But Lady Ginger had told me the truth of it that winter day when we stood together in front of Ma’s grave.
My grandmother had arrived at the cemetery on a carved wooden chair carried by four of her Chinamen – looking back, a couple of them must have been Tan Seng and Lok – and then she’d asked me to walk with her down the row of cypress trees and overgrown stones to the plot where I knew we’d left Ma.
But it was wrong that day, all wrong.
We couldn’t afford a headstone when we buried her. Back then Joey and me didn’t even have a Lucifer to spark a fire, but now there was a fine-carved marble memorial on her grave – a memorial we hadn’t paid for with a name I didn’t recognise.
ELIZABETH REDMAYNE
1836–1875
BELOVED DAUGHTER AND MOTHER
SHE TOOK LITTLE BUT WAS OWED MUCH
I was furious, thinking that some family had taken a liberty, even if it was a bleedin’ expensive one, but Lady Ginger told me I was wrong. She’d paid for the stone herself, she said, because Ma was her daughter.
When she was born I gave her my own name, because, at the time, it was all I had left.
Of an instant, I was standing in the cemetery again trying to make sense of it all. The east wind snatched at the hem of my skirt and my grandmother’s doll-black eyes watered at the sharpness of the air.
The carriage rocked again, jolting me back to the fusty interior. I pressed my forehead to the glass and flapped the fan. There was so much I didn’t understand. Fingers from the past were still stirring the pot in the present, every so often a bit of gristle would rise to the surface and then disappear before I could fish it out and take a good look at it.
I knew one thing, though. If I wanted answers I’d have to keep sharp. My grandmother liked games; even if she was raising death’s door knocker with her withered hand she’d still have the strength to play me.
There were two questions in particular – and I wasn’t going to leave until I had the meat off them.
One: What had Joey done to make Lord Kite and – as far as I could make out – all the other Barons want him so badly?
And two: Who was our father?
It seemed to me that if I had them facts straight in my head, then I might have a key to everything else.
Once we’d gone through the town we were out in the country. At first I reckoned we were going east, but the narrow lanes twisted about so much that we could have been heading back to Hastings for all the sense I could make of it now. The carriage swung so violent to the left that I had to catch the strap again to stop myself from slipping from the squeaking seat. Telferman opened his eyes.
‘I believe we are nearly at our destination.’
‘How can you tell that?’ I peered out of the window. ‘It’s all the same out there. Just trees and fields and then more trees.’
‘It is the sound.’ He raised a finger as if he was about to conduct a piece of music. ‘First running water and now …’ he nodded, ‘we are crossing the bridge at the perimeter of your grandmother’s estate.’
I shifted for a clear view through the grimy pane. The Beetle was right. A gleaming ribbon of water was visible beyond a low brick wall and there was a hollow drumming echo as the carriage rolled over a series of arches. Moments later wheels and hooves crunched on gravel. One of the horses whinnied, no doubt he had the tang of fresh hay and home in his nose.
‘Where are we, Mr Telferman? I think you can tell me now.’
He pulled at the scraggy curtain of his own window.
Telferman bent his head to take in the view. ‘We are in the wood. In a moment you will see it. Fraines Abbey has been part of her … your family’s estate for many years. She always valued its privacy.’
The carriage jagged hard to the right and we came out of the trees. I saw it now.
Fraines Abbey stood on a low ridge at the end of a drive lined by vast hedges clipped into peculiar shapes. Moonlight fell across rows of balls, pyramids and hump-backed masses that cast shadows across the silvered grass. At the end of the drive that divided the hedges into two mounded armies, a long turreted building sprawled across the gently rising land. As the carriage circled the ring of gravel in front of the house I looked up at the blind windows. A wide arched door opened and a pool of light splashed down the steps.
One of my grandmother’s Chinamen came out.
He watched the carriage shudder to a halt and then turned back to the doorway where a dark shape moved behind him. It was a moment before I realised it was Dr Pardieu standing there with a lantern.
Telferman patted his bag. ‘It too will be yours … soon. I have the documents here.’