In the dark streets around the Seven Dials in Soho, Caleb Rawson was hard at work, even though the task he had set himself was growing more difficult and uncomfortable by the day. For a start he was ill at ease in his merchant’s clothes because he knew they didn’t suit his ugliness at all. But worse than that, oh a deal worse, was the abhorrence he felt for the man he’d set himself to find. Pornography was an obscenity to him, a denigration of all the precious qualities in women that he’d learned to value and admire during his seven years as a convict and his long trek home to England. Nevertheless he was determined to hunt his quarry down no matter how much time and energy it took. He owed it to Harriet Easter, and he owed it to her daughter.
Ever since he’d first met Harriet’s daughter he’d felt peculiarly responsible for her, admiring her passion for life and pitying her present misery, almost as though she were a child of his own. Which for all he knew she might very well be. His affair with her mother had been almost exactly nine months before she’d been born, and although they’d only made love once, he knew such things were possible. Sometimes he caught himself looking at her and seeing reflections of his own face, dark, low of brow, grey eyed, and far too similiar for mere coincidence. And then he would yearn to be able to acknowledge her and claim her for his own and be loved by her. But on other occasions he would scold himself for such ridiculous fancies, and remind himself that he was an ex-convict wandering the world, and that she was an Easter and granddaughter to the great Nan, and very unlikely to prove to be anything else. But Easter or no she needed his help, poor young woman, if she was to come through this trial without serious harm.
There was very little time left now, for the case was a mere six weeks away and he was no nearer to tracing this man they wanted than he’d been on the day he started. He’d established that he was no longer operating from Holywell Street, for although none of the publishers there would admit to any knowledge of him, the third man he’d visited had been talkative enough to let drop that several of his colleagues had left the street quite recently.
‘Rumours of a police raid, you see, sir,’ he said. ‘As if the police ain’t got better things to do.’ And to Caleb’s hidden satisfaction he actually admitted that he knew where ‘one or two’ of them had gone. It took a lot of persuasion and several sovereigns before he would part with addresses or ‘whereabouts’, but Caleb’s persistence was finally rewarded. Since then he’d been checking these new addresses, methodically, one after the other, but without success.
Tonight’s destination was the fifth on the list and the nearer he got to it the less promising it looked. The Seven Dials was the dark centre to seven narrow alleys renowned for their poverty and violence. Rubbish lay piled beside every doorway, beggars huddled against every wall, the smell of filth and decay clogged the very air he tried to breathe. It was a noxious place and hardly the sort of neighbourhood for a gentleman, even one seeking the most secret of pleasures.
Number 27 St Martin’s Lane was a grimy terrace shared by six people plying for trade of one sort or another, with a reluctant lantern above the front door to illuminate the little cards on which their names were printed, each one set beside its own individual doorbell, Mrs Dalrymple, milliner and gentlemen’s assistante, Mr Grange, furniture restorer and cleaner, Mademoiselle Fifi, who didn’t specify her line of business at all. And there amongst them was Mr Leonard Snipe, publisher.
Found at last! Caleb thought as he pressed the appropriate bell. And although he had long since decided that he didn’t believe in anything so unlikely as a God, he found himself offering up a prayer as he waited for Mr Leonard Snipe to open the door. Let some good come of all this at last, he urged. Let this evil man be punished instead of my innocent girl.
The door opened and a very ordinary man stood before him, an ordinary middle-aged man, of middling height, and middling appearance, dressed plainly in a servant’s brown suit, three colourless waistcoats, and unobtrusive buff linen. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, standing inside the shadow cast by the half-opened door.
‘Mr Snipe?’
‘Well now,’ Mr Snipe said, ‘I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir. That would depend.’
To be given such a devious reply after such an aggravating search was irritating, but Caleb kept his temper and spoke smoothly. ‘Now that’s a pity, for I’ve business to do with Mr Snipe, and business worth a mint of money what’s more.’
The mention of money encouraged Mr Snipe. ‘If I could just say who is calling, sir?’
‘Why, you know better than that, man,’ Caleb said, giving vent to a little of his honest scorn. ‘In matters like this we must all use discretion, ain’t that so? It don’t do to go shouting names.’
‘Indeed,’ Mr Snipe agreed. His face was still expressionless, but there was an alertness about the way he held his head that showed he was listening attentively.
‘I act on behalf of two very powerful families,’ Caleb said with perfect truth. ‘Uncommon powerful families, if you take my meaning, sir. T’ sort of people who couldn’t possibly trade direct, not in t’ present climate of opinion, I tell ’ee straight.’
Mr Snipe seemed to understand that too. ‘A matter of business, was it?’ he asked.
‘Books,’ Caleb said shortly. ‘Books for connoisseurs, if you take my meaning.’ That was the word that had unlocked doors in Holywell Street.
‘Ah!’ Mr Snipe said thoughtfully, but he didn’t invite Caleb into the premises and he didn’t say anything else.
‘You were particularly recommended by a friend of mine.’
‘Indeed?’
‘He assured me you could provide me with some of the books upon this list.’ He pulled the paper out of his pocket and handed it across into the shadow.
Mr Snipe examined the list closely, holding it towards the candle.
‘Excellent publications,’ he said, ‘but costly.’
‘Money is no object,’ Caleb said, and pulling his wallet out of his trouser pocket, he opened it briefly so that the man could see the bank notes packed inside. That was another trick that had brought results in Holywell Street.
It brought results here too. At last Mr Snipe stood aside and asked his visitor if he would care to enter.
It was a long entrance, up four flights of stairs following the eerie shadows of the candle, and into a small cramped room overlooking the street. There was a truckle bed in one corner and a table under the window, but apart from that the room was furnished with packing cases, which seemed to be doing duty as chairs, book shelves, washstand, clothes-horse and even candle holders.
‘I’m in a bit of a pickle, as you see, sir,’ Mr Snipe said, ‘on account of a rather precipitous move occasioned by the police, which won’t surprise you given the present climate of opinion. Did you wish to purchase any of these books?’
‘My brief is to buy the most expensive one and examine all the others,’ Caleb said as casually as he could. ‘Do you have copies of all of them?’
Mr Snipe consulted the list again.
‘Two of these are out of print,’ Mr Snipe said, ‘but I could show you some of the others.’
This is our man, Caleb thought, his heart constricting. But he kept calm.
‘All of ’em, if you please,’ he said. ‘I’m not empowered to buy unless I see them all.’
Mr Snipe sighed and considered, gazing at his list. Then he agreed. ‘If you would be so kind as to sit down here, sir, I will get them for you.’
Here was on the only chair in the room and a mighty uncomfortable one, but Caleb sat on it with what patience he could muster while Mr Snipe unpacked boxes and removed books and muttered to himself.
And finally there they all were, all the books on the list except two. If this man didn’t publish them, he certainly sold them. It was evidence enough.
‘I have a summons here for you, Mr Snipe,’ Caleb said, producing his second and more powerful document. ‘You will see t’ matter to which it pertains, when you read it.’
Mr Snipe’s face changed colour and shape in an instant, like a placid dog baring his teeth to snarl. ‘Devil take ‘ee, sir!’ he said. ‘What a trick to play! Dammit all, ain’t a man to earn an honest living? I took you for a man of discernment.’
‘And found a man of honour.’
‘Honour!’ the pornographer growled. ‘Don’t talk to me of honour. There ain’t no such thing in the world. This is a calumny. I shall fight it, dammit. I don’t take this sort of thing. I’ll have you know I have powerful friends.’
But Caleb was already out of the door. Rail all you like, he thought, it’ll make no odds now.
On the way back to his lodgings in the Strand, he called in at Bow Street police station to warn the sergeant on duty that there was a pornographer on his patch who had been served a summons and ought to be watched in case he made a bolt for it. Then he asked for pen and ink, and leaning against the sergeant’s counter, he wrote two short letters, one to Nan and the other to Mr Brougham and folded them, with great satisfaction, into the envelopes he’d been carrying about with him all this time for just that purpose. Then he took a cab to Bedford Square to deliver them, even though he knew the house would be dark and asleep. Which it was. Then and at last he went home to his well-earned rest. From now on, things would improve for Miss Caroline Easter. They had reached the turning point.
Over in Paris a turning point of another kind had very definitely been reached. After weeks of illness Will was on the mend at last. The doctor pronounced himself well pleased, although he warned that the flux could return and that the patient should be treated with great tenderness for several months yet.
‘Could I travel?’ Will wanted to know.
‘By easy stages,’ the doctor said. ‘And if you are careful not to overtire yourself. Yes, it might be possible.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Will said to Tom and Edward when the doctor was gone. ‘We will travel tomorrow. I can’t wait to be back with Nan and Carrie and … If I can get home I shall be completely well again, straight away. You’ll see.’
‘Which means I got ter pack I suppose?’ Tom teased.
And I’ve got to face the music, Edward thought, for he could hardly leave old Tom Thistlethwaite to escort Will back to London on his own. It took two of them to support him when his legs gave way, as they often did, even now. No, no, poor old Will was in far too weak a state to travel alone. But oddly, after so many difficulties it was possible to consider this return and to accept it too, if not with equanimity, then at least with resignation. He knew now that he should never have run away in the first place, and that he would have to go back sooner or later. Will’s illness had simply made it sooner, that was all.
And perhaps in a way, the sooner the better.
It was a nightmare journey, for on top of everything else Will was sea-sick and by the time they got to Dover, he was too weak to stand and had to be carried ashore in a chair.
It quite frightened Edward to see how ill he looked, propped in the corner seat of their first class carriage with his eyes shut and his cheeks greeny grey. ‘Soon be home, old thing,’ he said, trying to be encouraging.
‘Be better presently,’ Will muttered. ‘It’ll pass.’
‘I’ll get you a newspaper,’ Edward offered. ‘Catch up on the news, eh?’ That might take his mind off things. And he shot off to the Easter stall.
It was ominously empty, with very few newspapers on display and no books at all.
‘You are sold out of books I see,’ he said conversationally to the young man behind the counter.
‘No sir,’ was the rueful reply. ‘Books don’t sell these days. All sent back, books is.’
‘Dear me,’ Edward said. ‘That can’t be good for trade.’
‘No sir, it ain’t. Trade’s bad an’ that’s a fact. All on account of some court case or other, so they do say.’
And that is all on account of me, Edward thought miserably as he took his paper back to the train. There was no way he could avoid the knowledge.
In Bedford Square, Nan and Caroline and Euphemia were taking tea in the garden with Mirabelle. It was a warm afternoon early in September and the garden was lush with sunshine, the lawn speckled with pink-edged daisies and the shrubbery banked high with the great yellow and white blooms of the chrysanthemums. The four women were sitting on the terrace in the shade of the magnolia tree and Euphemia was nursing Harry on her lap and feeding him with sponge cake. Consequently they were both spattered with crumbs and had gathered a chirruping chorus of sparrows and finches to peck and flutter beside their feet.
In such a peaceful place it was hard to imagine that the Easter case was a mere three weeks away. And yet Mr Brougham was out that very afternoon, visiting the Society for the Suppression of Vice to hear what they had decided to do about the two Easter prosecutions now that Mr Snipe was under arrest and awaiting trial. And Mr Rawson had gone with him, just in case they needed his evidence to bring Mr Snipe to court.
‘I do admire Mr Rawson,’ Euphemia said. ‘Any man who is prepared to stand up in court and name an evil demands our total respect, wouldn’t you say so? Put your little cakey on the plate, Harry my darling.’
‘He’s a curious man,’ Caroline said, ‘but I think he’s brave. He don’t seem to worry at all about appearing at a trial.’ She couldn’t even think about it without feeling sick with worry.
‘Perhaps the Easter case won’t come to court now,’ Mirabelle said.
‘Oh, I do hope not,’ Euphemia said, setting down her cup and saucer and smoothing Harry’s crumbs from her skirt. ‘Well now, my lovey, have you eaten that nice cake all up? I shall have to get you another one, shan’t I?’
‘If he eats any more he’ll go off bang,’ Nan said.
The butler arrived with two letters on a tray.
One was addressed to Nan in Mr Brougham’s beautiful copperplate and had been sent by hand, the other had come through the post, and was addressed to Euphemia.
‘Is it about the case?’ Caroline asked, as her grandmother opened the envelope and set her glasses on her nose ready to read.
‘Aye, I daresay,’ Nan said distantly, reading as she spoke.
‘What does it say?’
Mirabelle got up and removed Harry from Euphemia’s lap so that she could cpen her letter too. It was so quiet in the garden that they could hear the traffic passing on the other side of the house. She covered her skirts with a table napkin and sat the baby firmly in the middle of it before she gave him back his sponge cake. And he waited patiently, holding out his fat hands. ‘There now, my dear,’ she said quietly. ‘Ain’t you the best boy to be so good when your mama is so worried.’
Nan rustled the paper to her lap and took off her glasses. ‘We’ve only one count to face now, my dear,’ she said to Caroline. ‘They mean to drop the charges against you and merely sue the firm.’
‘Thank heavens for that!’ Mirabelle said with feeling.
But Caroline’s face was still taut. ‘Then I shall appear for the firm,’ she said.
‘That en’t necessary,’ Nan said. ‘Not now. Thanks to Mr Rawson.’
‘Somebody will have to appear.’
‘Yes, I daresay.’
‘Then who is it to be?’
‘We can think of that later,’ Nan said vaguely.
‘No, Nan dear, we can’t. If we think of it later it will be you, and I can’t allow that. I was responsible for selling the books on the stalls, so I must be answerable in court.’
‘But …’ Nan said.
‘No buts,’ Caroline said lovingly. ‘I’m prepared for it now, so I shall do it. I can’t have you standing up in court to answer for my sins. Fair’s fair.’
I must intervene, Mirabelle thought, so as to give Nan a chance to accept. If they go on talking she will fight on to no purpose. ‘Do you have good news too, Euphemia?’ she said.
‘I think it rather depends on how you look at it,’ Euphemia said, setting her own letter down on the table.
‘What is it, Pheemy?’ Caroline asked.
‘Well,’ Euphemia said, smiling round at them all. ‘Actually, it’s from Miss Nightingale. She has offered me a job.’
Caroline felt her heart sink. It was a sensation that was much too familiar these days. But she smiled at Euphemia and gave her an encouraging answer, for she had to try to be unselfish, indeed she did, after all the trouble she’d caused. ‘But how splendid,’ she said. ‘What sort of job?’
‘It appears that she has been offered a hospital of her own at last,’ Euphemia said. ‘It is in Harley Street, a hospital for governesses. She has offered me a position there.’
Caroline’s heart sank even further. ‘You will take it, of course,’ she said, trying hard to be cheerful. ‘When do you start?’
‘In two weeks’ time, I fear,’ Euphemia said anxiously.
‘In two weeks?’ Now that was alarming. It would mean standing the trial without Pheemy to comfort her.
‘I would live here, of course,’ Euphemia said. ‘We could talk about – everything, every evening.’ Her lovely brown eyes were lustrous with distress. ‘But if you …’
‘You must take it,’ Caroline said quickly. ‘Of course you must, after waiting for it all this time. Why, you mustn’t even think of refusing. Now tell us all about it.’
But if there was any more to tell none of them ever heard it, because at that moment one of the parlour maids came hurtling out into the garden with her cap askew and her face red with alarm. ‘If you please, ma’am,’ she said to Nan, ‘Mr Will’s come home ma’am, an’ he’s in the hall, bein’ ever so ill, and could somebody come please.’
All four women were on their feet in an instant, Caroline and Euphemia running full-tilt into the house, their crinolines swinging violently, Mirabelle, held back by the weight of the baby, following more sedately with Nan.
To Caroline’s anxious eyes the hall was littered with luggage and full of people, the butler actually wringing his hands, which was a thing she’d never seen before, housemaids watching with their mouths open, cousin Edward – what was he doing there? – looking anxious and dishevelled with his expensive blue jacket covered in filth, Tom Thistlethwaite kneeling on the tiled floor with one arm under Will’s back, and Will himself, dear, dear Will, slumped against the banisters at the foot of the stairs, pale as putty, with his eyes closed and two red fever spots as round as pennies on his cheeks, groaning.
‘What have you done to him?’ she said fiercely to Edward.
‘He’s had dysentery, Miss Caroline,’ Tom answered. ‘He’s been bad fer weeks. We thought he was better.’
‘The doctor said he was well enough to travel,’ Edward said, trying to defend himself.
‘You could have killed him,’ Caroline blazed at them. ‘What were you thinking of to make him travel in such a state?’
‘He took bad on the journey, miss,’ Tom said.
And Will opened his eyes and looked up at them. ‘Carrie?’ he said. ‘Pheemy?’
Then everything else was forgotten, the trial, Caleb’s assistance, Mr Brougham’s letter, Miss Nightingale’s offer, Edward’s treachery, Tom’s folly in bringing him home so ill, everything. There was only Will, lying on the floor groaning in pain, only Will and her great affection for him.
She dropped to her knees in a swish of sinking cotton and took her brother’s poor damp head into her lap. But Euphemia was more practical.
‘Go to the kitchen,’ she said to the nearest housemaid, ‘and tell them to prepare as much hot water as they can. They’re to fill the stone hot-water bottles and bring them up to Mr Will’s bed first, and after that all the jugs and ewers they can find. I shall need fresh towels, but I will get them myself on the way upstairs. Send Totty up to us at once and Mary-Anne and Bessie if you can find her, but don’t wake her if she’s sleeping. Harry must be kept right out of the way,’ she explained to Caroline. ‘We don’t want him to take the infection. Now perhaps,’ she said to Edward, ‘you and Tom could help him upstairs to bed. The sooner he’s lying down and in the warm the better.’
By the time Nan and Mirabelle arrived in the hall she had everything under control.
So quiet and efficient, Nan thought, watching her. Why, she’s a splendid nurse. No wonder that Miss Nightingale has offered her a job.
But Mirabelle only had eyes for Edward, struggling up the stairs with his cousin’s limp arm draped about his neck.
‘Mirry,’ he said. ‘I …’ And then he saw Nan, standing small and straight with those white hands gnarled across the head of her walking stick, looking at him with those sharp eyes of hers. ‘Nan. I must tell you …’
‘There en’t time for any of that now,’ she said sharply. ‘You do as Euphemia says and get your cousin up to bed. I’ll deal with you later.’