XII. Broken Glass and a Missing Girl

Roger Peale awakened, confused. Then remembered he’d been removed to a damp cellar room—barely eight feet square, with stone-and-mortar walls. It was his punishment for breaking a hole in the wall, Mrs Bludgeon had said. He’d admitted to breaking it—he hadn’t wanted to get the woman on the other side in trouble.

At first he thought he had lost a leg, then realized he had no chains. It was as though without the chains, part of his leg was missing. When he moved the leg, it was stiff and painful. He knelt on the straw mattress to see through the mullioned window above the cot. Two wooden bars had been nailed across the inside, but he could see out between them to a thicket of trees. It was not the same wood, for this window faced east, but it contained a whole grove of chestnut trees. He could see the sun inching slowly up over the leafy tops.

The place was quiet as a copse on a winter day. He watched a spider crawl toward the window, then disappear into a crack. While he remained captive. “It’s cold in here. I need a fire!” he called out. But no one answered. A sparrow flew past the window, and off into the woods. He called out again—silence.

Anger took his breath at the thought of this dank prison—no better than Newgate; he reached between the bars and hammered his fists; one of the panes cracked—but not big enough to push an arm through. His knuckles bled but he felt no pain, only the familiar despair of the trapped—as if he were beast, not human. Was that what he was—a mere animal? He howled and heard the howl beat itself against the walls. Outdoors, he thought he heard something screech back, a kindred spirit.

But unlike himself, free.

Foolish, no doubt, Joseph thought: this wild chase to Grosvenor Square to look for an object some trickster had alluded to in an anonymous note. Had it been anyone other than Mary, he would not have taken part. But he had no children of his own—Mary was his family now, and impetuous and unpredictable as she was, he adored her.

When Mary had come knocking on his door, fresh off the boat from Ireland, he had taken her in. She was a feral cat, starved for the flesh of intelligent discourse; a woman with seemingly few prospects, and no sign of surrender to man or God. No great writer either, he had thought at the time: her Education of Daughters an innovative but flawed work—the unsold copies gathering dust in his warehouse. Yet when she entered his shop like a onrushing wave, he gave up his shore. And she soon showed him what she could do. Her Vindication was now in several languages.

And here she was herself, bursting out of the carriage, banging on the dead woman’s door, shoving through it, in spite of the housekeeper’s daughter, who was understandably upset at this passionate entry. “We have come to search the cellar,” Mary announced, and marched past the bewildered girl. “I was Mrs Frothingham’s friend. We’re looking for—oh, what does it matter? I needn’t explain.”

Nor could she explain, Joseph might have told the frowning girl, but he held his tongue. He knew what they both wanted to find, but why the deuce would the stolen painting be here, of all places? Nevertheless, he nodded at the maid and followed Mary as she snatched up two candlesticks—one for each—and headed for the stair to the cellar. Down they went: past the kitchen, down into the bowels of a mansion that was far more elegant than his own home. Somewhere the bluestocking had acquired the means.

They must search in two directions, she decided when they entered the dank, cobwebbed cellar. And here he was: an asthmatic man who hoped to show his protégée how absurd it was to bungle about in the dark with little more to go on than an anonymous note, an obscene sketch. Her impetuousness would come to no good end, he’d warned—neglecting, of course, to remind her of the outcome of her foray into the Fuseli household. She had undoubtedly felt enough remorse in the aftermath of that pitiable affair.

She would not break down and cry over it, though, not in front of him—nor anyone, he supposed. She wanted no pity, she would inevitably say, though he could see the heart fracturing under the façade of confidence.

“Have you found anything?” she called from somewhere in the cellar.

“How can I find something,” he called back, “when I don’t know what I’m looking for? I see only an ocean of wine. Mrs Frothingham might well have drunk herself to death. I suspect she was already dead when the fellow found her and trussed her up.”

“Not her,” Mary said. “She had a life force. She was going back to adopt her Annie, did you know that?”

He did not. “Who told you that?”

“Why, Annie herself. And, the governor, yes, mentioned something of the sort.”

Dreaming again, he thought. Imagining things: like a positive reception from Sophia Fuseli. As if any self-respecting English wife would accept a second into her household. “Writers are a mad species,” he said aloud, thinking not only of Mary, but of William Blake with his angels; young Sam Coleridge, with his opium dreams. Even Erasmus Darwin, writing a long love poem to his plants (though Joseph had published The Botanic Garden the year before—and with profit, for once.)

Publishers and editors had to be wholly rational. Without them, writers would ride off into the sunset without a map. But try to tell them that.

“Mr Johnson! Come look at this.” Her voice sounded far away, as if issuing forth from an empty wine bottle. He heard a clonking sound, like bottles banging against one another, then clunking to the hard dirt floor.

He stumbled his way toward her, his breath coming raw from the damp. What legal right had they to be here? If the housekeeper were to summon a constable—and himself already in trouble publishing pamphlets that outraged church and state...

He straightened his shoulders and pulled up a shuddery breath. He must make Mary come to her senses and leave this place at once. But he started coughing before he could get a word out. “P-please,” he choked as he made his way toward the spectral voice.

He halted. Three bottles lay on the floor, oozing wine. Such a waste, he thought, and set the broken ones upright. Then, looking up, he saw a rack of remaining bottles moving aside; she’d found a hidden catch to press and lo, the rack had swung out of the way. Behind, to Joseph’s surprise, was a hiding place, a kind of safe. She cried out.

“What?”

“Look! Open your eyes.”

“If you move aside, I will. I can scarcely breathe. I have to get out of here.”

“As soon as you help me remove this painting.”

“Painting?”

“The Nightmare! Can’t you see? It was here all this time, rolled up. This is where she hid it. Or someone hid it.”

He looked, and it was so. She was slowly unrolling the canvas. And there was the sleeping woman, the incubus, the leering horse. My God, he thought. My God. But who? And why? She was on her knees, staring at it, with lidded eyes. As though praying. Praying for what?

“We must inform Henry,” he said, his blood heating with the excitement of the discovery.

Now she was up, facing him, those witch-hazel orbs penetrating his. “We will do no such thing, Mr Johnson.”

“You don’t mean to appropriate it y-yourself!” Upset, he tended to stutter. “You can’t do such a thing. You w-wouldn’t!”

“Not for me. Not to keep. Why would I want such a monster? No. We must leave it hidden, don’t you think? Until we find out who put it here?”

“Why, it had to be Mrs Frothingham,” he allowed. “This is her wine cellar. She hired someone to steal the painting and bring it here. S-sounds just like her. She was a collector. You’ve seen her drawing room. Though surely she’d have admitted—”

“Possibly, yes. But we must prove beyond a doubt that it was not Mr Peale. We can’t let Fuseli have his way over the poor fellow. No, we must find out who left that note about the hiding place. It was someone who knew me, I wager, who came into my home.”

“But my d-dear girl—be reasonable.”

“Pray, help me roll this monster back up, if you will, and put back these bottles. We must make the place appear untouched.”

“Impossible, my dear. Wine seeping into the dirt floor? Broken glass? Any fool would know someone was here.” Oh, why was he doing this? If it were anyone but Mary he would leave at once. But for Mary... and for Henry, too, his old friend. Both of them irrational at times, but highly original, and he valued that above all attributes. “Mary, dear, let’s take the painting and leave. Or you’ll be carrying a dead man up the steps. Is that what you want? Who will publish your next book?”

“You’re trying to blackmail me,” said Mary, but he saw the sly smile. “Go on up, dear man. But call the housekeeper to bring a broom. Tell her the wine bottle we were looking for has shattered. I’ll close up the false panel.”

“I will clean it up,” said a shrill voice, and Joseph turned to see a sharp-faced woman descend the stairs with a broom and cleaning rags. Resigned, he sank down on a bottom step of the staircase, to wait.

Mary was a cat caught in the cream. But nevertheless, quick on her feet. “You do remember me from Mrs Frothingham’s soirées?” she soothed, addressing the woman. “She and I were well acquainted.”

“And let me help you with that panel,” said the woman—the housekeeper, most likely.

“You knew what was in there,” said Mary.

“Didn’t I help put it there?” said the woman, looking indignant.

“Then how—that is, who was responsible for its concealment? Surely you know what it is!” Mary looked at the housekeeper, and then at the publisher.

He kept his silence. He knew better than to come betwixt two strong-minded women.

“I only helped Mrs Frothingham,” the woman said, sounding defensive—though no one had accused her. “But good riddance, said I, when the painting was concealed. A disgusting thing, I have to say! And I was sorry for that young man in gaol. ‘A sacrifice,’ the mistress called it.” She set about cleaning up wine and bits of glass. Her bottom loomed like a round hillock.

“Did Mrs Frothingham herself take the painting?” Mary said, standing over her. “Surely she had help to remove the frame. Though undoubtedly it was someone else’s idea, not hers. What, I ask, have you overheard? Pray, tell me.”

“Madam, I do not eavesdrop,” the housekeeper said.

“Come now,” said Mary, “you heard my question perfectly well. Speak up. It could mean the life of a young artist—falsely accused!”

The housekeeper gave a resigned sigh and a series of snorts. Finally she stood upright. “Mrs Frothingham spoke only of he. He took the painting, and he wanted it stored here ’till he could retrieve it. And then he would give Mrs Frothingham a share of what he earned from disposing of it—in America, I believe he said. My employer—well, I know for a fact—needed the money. You’ve no idea how she overspent! With never a thought to the future.” She groaned to think of the extravagance.

“You never saw this man? You never saw a man in close conversation with her?”

“My employer entertained many gentlemen, madam. And all in close conversation with her. As I said, I do not eavesdrop. The affair was none of my business.” The woman had done with her harangue. She went back to her task of cleaning the floor. (Who was paying her, with the bluestocking dead? Joseph wondered—and felt he should help out.) Mary was staring at the bent back as though her eyes might somehow glean the information. Joseph would never understand the minds of women. His own mother had been an enigma to him, never expressing her thoughts or feelings. Always wanting to control him. And he’d had his frustrating confrontations with the bluestocking, though he pitied the manner of her demise. She was a clever woman; her novel sold well in spite of Mary’s less-than-enthusiastic review.

The housekeeper kept her peace. She marched back up the stairs with her rags and broom. When Mary helped Joseph off the step and sent him up the crumbling stairway in front of her—she would catch him should he fall, she said—he went. He did not want to be drawn into this nightmare. He had problems enough of his own. And here was the authoress on a foolhardy quest for a thief and killer—when she should be writing the second part of Vindication, earning them both a bit of money. He might just as well send her to Paris, as she’d hinted, to write about the ongoing Revolution. It would serve, too, to stifle gossip of the Fuseli disaster.

“For now, get back to work,” he said, stopping on the stairs to cough and draw breath. “Go home and write.”

Did he hear the impudent creature laugh?

Dulcie had had enough of that girl. She had tramped up and down London Bridge searching for her, a frightening experience, what with the strong current below that spun small boats into a whirlpool and sucked down the sailors, folk said. She didn’t dare look into the choppy waters for fear she’d see the desperate fingers of the victims sticking up.

A red-haired girl at the far end of the bridge was walking hand in hand with a tall boy; Dulcie elbowed her way through the crowd. But it was just a pasty-faced milkmaid, and Dulcie shrugged. She could only hope the girl had reconsidered and gone home. Anything could happen to a female alone in this dangerous city. Hadn’t Dulcie herself, at one time or another, been solicited by bawds? And what of Miss Mary?

A figure bumped into her and she felt a tug at her pocket. She wheeled about to see a young footpad flee down the street—then trip on a protruding tree root. She raced to catch up with him and retrieve her favorite handkerchief—it ripped in the struggle. “Thief!” she screeched. But no one turned a head. No one cared about a servant girl.

Her bladder was full, so she ducked into an alley, pulled up her skirts, and let go. Hurried out just as two smirking youths swaggered past.

She practically raced home through the streets and burst in, calling the girl’s name: “Annie? Answer me, girl. Where’ve you been, Annie?”

She tramped through the rooms, calling.

But no Annie.

Now she was in trouble. She had promised Miss Mary to keep the girl inside and the wench had gone out and got herself lost. All of it Dulcie’s fault, the mistress would say, and point, as warning, to the door. And if Dulcie were to leave here, where would she go? The publisher would not keep paying her wages.

When it was Annie’s fault, not hers!

Though the girl wasn’t really bad: she was just headstrong. It wasn’t so long ago Dulcie had been thirteen, in that charity school. And oft-times whipped till her skin was red and raw. She had to remember that. Sorry for herself, she dropped onto the sofa beside the cat; the creature opened a slitted eye, and closed it again. And now her nose was running. She groped along a side table for something to wipe her face with—and came up with a stocking she’d been meaning to darn. When she could half see again, she recalled leaving Isobel’s will on that table. She groped for it. But it wasn’t there. She searched under the sofa and all around the room. And no will.

Oh, Lord in heaven! Now she had plenty to cry about. She let go, loud and clear; she watered the cat. The lazy black thing jumped off the sofa and scampered from the room. It didn’t care. Nobody did. And all because of that child. That miserable Annie!

Late in the day Roger heard children’s voices outside the window. He recalled hearing a child call out a few weeks ago when he was in the upstairs room. A neighbour’s child most likely. He couldn’t imagine a child living in this place of misery. The children’s voices sounded melodious, like a running stream. Whenever he painted children, he heard them in his inner ear. He thought of his neighbour’s little girl, her tinkling laughter. But she and her mother had gone to America to join the woman’s husband in Ohio.

The voices danced through the wood. At least it seemed to him that they danced. Happy people danced—not Roger. He could scarcely lift one foot in front of the other. He pulled himself to his knees to see through the window. “Ho,” he called out. “Ho!”

The voices ceased. The dancing stopped and the wood was quiet again. He cursed himself for calling out. He needed those voices in his head. He lay back on his cot, depressed, ready to die. Perhaps he would, and soon. It were best that he die, for if he came out into the light he’d be punished for the escape from Newgate, for a theft and murder he was innocent of.

Now the voices sounded again, and he pulled himself back up to the window and rapped on it. Two brown heads looked up, both boys. He tried to smile but he couldn’t: the muscles in his cheeks were slack. He lifted a hand and gave a weak wave. One of the boys threw a chestnut at the glass, and laughed. Roger wiggled his hands and put his fingers in his cheeks the way he did with Lillian’s child—that always made the lad giggle. The boy grinned and threw another chestnut. Roger clapped his hands; he put a thumb to his nose and waggled it. Another chestnut—the smaller boy joining in. Children loved a game. Then a pebble striking the window directly, between the inside bars—the first boy was a good shot.

More faces, more pebbles. And then a rock. A rock that cracked the glass in the place Roger had earlier struck it. He wiggled his nose and blinked and banged on the window to encourage the throwing. For the children might make a hole in the window. A hole that he might crawl through in the night. And they wouldn’t tell. Children who broke windows did not tell, for glass cost money and windows were taxed.

It had begun to rain, and the boys were running away now, giggling. The smaller one turned back and put a finger to his lips. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell,” Roger mouthed, but of course they couldn’t hear him.

The rain darkened the room, but he could smell lilacs in the air that blew through the hole. It must indeed be April by now. He didn’t know where he was—what part of England, though the carriage had headed south when he and St Pierre left Newgate. But he would find his way home. Animals did, and so could he.

A key turned in the lock and the apple-faced woman came in with a tray. He lay back again on the cot so the old woman would look at him and not at the cracked window—though the room was darkening with dusk, he needn’t worry. She plunked down the tray on a wooden chair, nodded, and without a word, as though she had been instructed to abstain from talk, turned and went out.

Tonight he would enlarge the crack with the aid of the chair, and then with all the strength he had left—and more—he would try to wrench apart the wooden bars. He was weak, yes, but he had read about men accomplishing miraculous feats in their desperation. He thought of the castaway surgeon Henry Pitman, who had escaped from a penal colony, then shipwrecked on a desert island—and survived; he thought of Scottish Alexander Selkirk, four years alone on a Pacific Island—both of them, no doubt, models for Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Yes, the children’s voices had revived Roger’s hopes. He was not mad. He would find his way back to his Lillian; they would take ship to America. Lilly would bear his children; he would farm, and paint. They would live out their lives in peace.

He wanted, too, to paint those children who had saved him. He would paint them dancing, tossing up leaves, chestnuts, and pebbles. He would paint himself into the background, a man frail but not broken, watching in the shadows.

Waiting to dance.

Mary carried her morning coffee to the sitting room and dropped onto the sofa—the cushions, she saw, already required patching from the kneading cat. She had just sent ten pounds from her royalties to a needy Everina and she could not afford new cushions. She was at the end of her patience. Everything she had touched of late had turned to straw. She had tried to find true companionship, and was cruelly rebuffed. She had braved a madhouse, only to discover the victim was gone. She had crawled about Isobel Frothingham’s wine cellar and found that the bluestocking herself was involved in the theft of the painting. Another blow for literary women, who were already called unnatural females. Now Annie had willfully disobeyed and stayed out all night. Was this to flout Mary—or was the girl in some kind of trouble? Edgar Ashcroft had seen her with a man, he had told Dulcie, and Mary was worried. Young girls were at risk in this feral town.

She will come home. She will come home today, Mary told herself, and felt better for having said it.

But here was Dulcie stomping into the room, moaning about a missing will. “What will?” Mary said. “I have no will. No will to go on at all.”

“Not that kind of will,” Dulcie said. “A death will, you know—what you leave folk when you’re underground.”

Mary sighed at the thought of a death will. She had her whole life ahead of her, did she not? And what had she to leave anyone? “Have you, Dulcie, made a will at the tender age of nineteen? And what valuable jewels,” she teased, “are you planning to bequeath?”

Mary was worn down by the wine cellar adventure. Her nerves were jumping like fleas. If she couldn’t have peace at home, she might as well fling herself into the river. Had she done it the day Henry rejected her, she would not have had to endure the averted glances of her peers.

“Mrs Frothingham’s will!” Dulcie cried. “Not a sealed and signed one, but a will, all right. It said so at the top. Last will and testament, and so forth. I was going to show it to you, but it disappeared. It was with those papers I took from her drawer.”

“What? You took papers from her drawer? Without her knowing it?”

“How could she know it? She was dead. I was just trying to help you, ma’am.”

“By stealing what might be evidence? And you never told me?” When Dulcie hung her head, Mary sat up straight, and gulped the last of the coffee. “Then sit down and tell me about those papers.You took them from her drawer, you say? Well, it’s true, she’ll never know, poor thing. And where, pray, are the rest of those papers? Go find them at once.” Mary waved an arm to send the grinning girl thumping up to her room.

But the bluestocking had died intestate—or so they said. Mary’s solicitor was investigating, but he had not found a will. The fat, feathered cousin who had laid claim to the estate was still trying to make it hers, and might succeed, while Mary was hoping to have the estate fall to Annie. At least she had sent a petition to the lawyer to that effect.

Minutes later Dulcie was back and Mary had a lapful of papers. They spilled over onto the floor; the cat was making a nest in them. “I assume you’ve been through these.” She was secretly pleased that Dulcie had found them, but had to remain stern: else the officious girl would be shuffling through Mary’s own papers. And that would never do. The girl would find out she had been writing nothing—nothing of value at all—as she sat at her writing desk.

“Some, madam, not all.”

“Then show me what you find of most interest.” Mary was too weary to paw through everything; she needed a shortcut. “And refill my coffee, would you. I require something to stimulate my brain.”

Dulcie pulled out a handful of sketches and pointed. “Who is that boy? The one standing all alone like he smelled bad?”

Mary had to smile. Dulcie had a way of cutting to the core of things. “Unattractive, yes. But what about the coffee? And bring one for yourself if you like. Oh, and you’ll never guess what I found in Mrs Frothingham’s wine cellar.” She had to tell someone—it might as well be Dulcie. The girl might be giddy, but she had a brain—she wouldn’t always be a servant. Not that she considered herself one, anyway.

Dulcie was obviously torn between the coffee and the discovery in the wine cellar. She stood on one foot, and then the other.

“The coffee first and then I’ll tell about the wine cellar. And bring me a slice of bread with butter and raspberry jam, please. I’m starved. I ate almost nothing yesterday.”

Dulcie sighed loudly and pounded down the steps to the kitchen. Her wooden pattens made her sound like an elephant—too often she forgot to take them off in the house. Mary rubbed her temples, and squinted at the papers Dulcie had handed her. One was a rough drawing, done, it appeared, by an adolescent. The mother’s eyes were dull and averted, the father’s stern. The girl had to be Isobel herself: the arched eyebrows, sly smile. And then the boy, standing apart, legs spread, staring insolently ahead. A bastard son perhaps? In a second drawing the sketcher, perhaps young Isobel, had drawn tiny horns on the boy; in a third, she had drawn a tail. A naughty child. A wicked child. Or so the unknown sketcher perceived him to be.

Turning the drawing over she saw a black thumb print, and in the next drawing the thumb print blocked out the boy’s face as though pushing him out of the picture. In the next, the thumb print covered young Isobel’s face. Some careless person had been looking at these pictures.

The coffee arrived—too hot, and Mary let it sit there while she thumbed through more papers. She found nothing to indicate a father for Annie. She scanned a sheaf of poetry: childhood verses, begging for love; adolescent verses, longing for love; adult poems steeped in love that wasn’t love—but lust, envy, ambition. Ambition for what? Like Mary perhaps, wanting to be taken seriously as a writer? A new genus of woman and writer, Mary had told her sisters (but sometimes, with the disapproval of some, feeling an imposter).

For a moment she wondered, like Joseph, if the bluestocking had swallowed a vial of pills, then had a trusted friend or servant arrange her to look like the painting. As if the death scene were a final poem, one that had succeeded this time. It was entirely possible: the woman could have done it.

But no, she thought, sipping the coffee: Isobel had been full of life when they last met. She had talked of poems that would soon be published. She would not have wanted to die before her time.

“So what did you find in the wine cellar? What? Tell!” Dulcie’s enthusiasm hurt the listener’s ears.

Mary licked the last bit of raspberry jam off her lips while Dulcie waited. Then she described in considerable detail what she had found.

Dulcie was smiling. “She said it might be a woman who took the painting.”

“What? Who said?”

“Mrs Frothingham. At her party when I served the iced plum cake. The thief might be a woman, she said. And the French lady clapped her hands.”

“Something else you never told me?” Mary frowned. “Well, too late. Now we must discover who sent that note. I had almost forgot with all this talk about a missing will, and Mrs Frothingham’s papers. You were here, were you not? Who brought that packet?”

“It was Mr Ashcroft. He said he’d found it on the doorstep. He said he’d something important to say to you, and he’d be back later for your reply.”

“My answer is no. You could have told him that, Dulcie. I do not wish to see Mr Ashcroft or hear his solicitations. I gave him my answer before, and it was final.” Mary slapped the sofa pillow for emphasis and papers sprang up amidst the dust.

“I did remind him of that, madam. At least I tried.”

“Ah, you’re a good girl. Sometimes. But how do we know he was telling the truth about finding the packet? It might have been himself who wrote the note and merely said he found it? He lies about everything else in his foolish newspaper.”

Mary swallowed the acrid dregs of the coffee. She supposed she would have to speak to the arrogant fellow. She fancied she could tell if a person were lying. Had there not been a half dozen suitors in her life who had thrown down their affections like flowering weeds at her feet, and then deserted her? No, she had given up all hope of finding an honest man of sensibility.

“Send for Mr Ashcroft,” she told Dulcie.

“Send for him? I don’t know where he lives.”

“His place of work is in Fleet Street. They tell me he has rooms above. Find a porter. Here, take this.” She scribbled out a message on the back of an envelope.

Then as Dulcie stood, she tore it up. “I must be mad. Send for him? Why, he’ll think I want him to come! When it’s the last—”

“Madam, he said he would come here.”

“Ah, then, we will have to grit our teeth and wait. And where could young Annie have gone? I told you to keep her in, didn’t I?”

“So you did, ma’am. But she’s willful, that one. Disobedient. Of course I said no. And when my back was turned—”

A knock on the door and Dulcie went to answer. Mary sucked in her breath. It couldn’t be Annie: the child wouldn’t knock; she would simply barge in with a made-up excuse. She steeled herself for who it probably was.

It was. “Mr Edgar Ashcroft,” Dulcie announced, with a smirk.

The man charged in and flung himself down to kneel at Mary’s feet. Oh, dear. Close up, she saw the furrows in his forehead, the parentheses around his mouth, the saggy belly. The bobwig came off with his hat and he clapped it back on. But not before she noted the bare circle in the centre of his greying head.

“Madam. I have to confess. Madam, you must hear me out. About that painting? I know you were at Grosvenor Square—I saw you leave with Mr Johnson. Nay, not a word!” he shouted, though she hadn’t uttered one. “Just hear me out.”

“For heaven’s sake, stand up, will you?” said Mary. “My shoe is covered with spit.” She seated herself in a parlour chair while he blathered on. “Now, pray, get to the point.”

She had small patience with those who could not state their purpose in a few well-chosen words. The man was dancing all about the subject, tossing out compliments like peppermint drops; she had a headache. She’d had a headache upon coming home yesterday, finding Annie gone. Today, with Edgar Ashcroft at her feet, she ached from head to toe. For he had not risen at all when summoned, but crawled over to a stool, pushed aside the sleeping cat, and dragged the stool to her feet. She put a hand to her temples and sighed.

He took this for a sign of acquiescence. “Miss Wollstonecraft. Madam?”

“Mrs Wollstonecraft, if you please,” said Mary. She had just this minute decided to take on the mature Mrs. Why not? Other women did. It was a mark of distinction.

Though at heart she felt herself to be the same Mary. Her old failures would not disappear with a new title. Or a new book. It wasn’t easy to become a Mrs.

“You need protection, miss—missus. You are in danger. Protection I can give you. I have many assets. I own two warehouses—well, one now. I own a newspaper.”

“So you said. Many times.”

“Though admittedly, I lost money through unwise investments. But I’ve—”

“Pray, enough. Now who wrote that note about a wine cellar? It was you, was it not? Confess now: you wrote it. You brought it here, hoping I might go to Grosvenor Square and look for The Nightmare. So I went, yes, and I found it. And now I must ask you: how did you know it was there? Had you something to do with the theft?” She leaned forward to look him squarely in the eye. He looked ridiculous with his satin buttocks squashed over that small, round stool. He had a hole in one of his white stockings.

He gazed back, blinking. His mouth quivered. For a moment she thought he might cry, and she couldn’t bear that. “Speak,” she ordered, and handed him a handkerchief.

He held it to his lips as though he would kiss it; then wiped his eyes and pocketed it. She did not ask for it back. “I was at Mrs Frothingham’s,” he began.

“Asking her to marry you.”

“Oh no, madam, it has always been you I wanted. I was merely, well, taking solace.”

“In her bed. If she would let you.”

“No, no,” he protested. “It was always—”

“So you said. Now go on. You were at Mrs Frothingham’s, and you or she or some mysterious he spoke about the painting.”

“Yes! It was he who brought it to her. Not for her, mind you, but because he needed the money for—well, I am not at liberty to say precisely what for. But rest assured, to this man at least, the money was paramount.”

“Mmm. And what part had you in the theft of this painting?”

“None at all, I promise you. Absolutely none! Oh no, no. Why would I take a painting of the most prurient nature? Risk all my—”

“Yes, yes, go on.”

“I had to close my eyes just to look at it. Unseemly, aye. An insult to the feminine gaze. I hope you don’t think—”

“But you helped to hide it.”

“No, not that either, though Mrs Frothingham begged. And then made me swear to keep silence. He was with her when I arrived. The painting was there in the drawing room. I couldn’t help but see it. She wanted it taken to the cellar at once, before the other servants arrived. Only the housekeeper was there.”

“So I discovered.”

“The painting was huge,” he said, describing it with his hands: “They had to pry it off the frame and roll it. It barely fit through the door.”

Mary glanced at the fleshy bum that overlapped the width of the stool; it might have been Edgar Ashcroft, not the painting, that barely fit through the door—she couldn’t imagine he had sat there and done nothing. She heard Dulcie giggle in the hall and almost broke down herself.

“He might have had help for that—someone waiting, I don’t know. She had a false panel where she kept her best wine,” he went on. “It was exactly wide enough, Mrs Frothingham said, for—”

“I saw it, I told you,” Mary interrupted. “I was there.”

“Ah. So I hoped you would be. I want the painting returned to its creator. You see, I’ve been torn with guilt. That young artist falsely accused. And you in need of help and support—I had to tell you. I happen to know how cruelly Mr Fuseli treated you when you, um—”

Mary was on fire; her voice rose. “So you thought to gain my favour by telling me all this. Making me a partial conspirator, because now the painting remains in the wine cellar. Don’t you think I’ll tell Mr Fuseli? It’s not as though we don’t speak at all.”

Though it was. They had not spoken a word since his betrayal; he had completely cut her off. What had she intended to do with the painting? Joseph didn’t want to be further involved. They had left the thing there like a snake one doesn’t want to handle, and walked away.

But there was one thing she had to know. “The housekeeper, too, mentioned this mysterious he. Name him! I must know.”

He gave a sly smile and rubbed his satin belly. “Pray, madam, is it not enough to know the painting is safe? That it was not Peale, and the bluestocking is dead so she will not suffer when the painting comes to light. The housekeeper discovers it, but no one knows how it got there, you understand?” He was off the stool, down on his knees again, hands clasped, imploring. “If you will come to see me in my quarters on Fleet Street, I might be persuaded to tell you the name.”

“I will not come. Now will you please stand up?”

“Madam, I can give you acres of land. I have a country house up in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare country, madam. I know how you revere the Bard.”

Mary held up a warning hand. “Mr Ashcroft. If you are so torn with guilt, then you will tell me. A young artist, abducted. A bright, young (well, not so young) woman murdered. Myself threatened—of course you know that? The killer left a warning.”

There was a knock at the door. Edgar Ashcroft wobbled on his knees but didn’t move.

The knock came again, and at Mary’s nod, Dulcie went to open up—reluctantly. She would want to hear what the man had to say. But his lips were now sealed.

“Mary! He’s back!” And here was Lillian Guilfoy bursting in. She paused, astonished to see Edgar Ashcroft on his knees. But in a moment the man was up and moving.

“I will come again,” he told Mary as if he were tossing a pound note at her. “We will speak further. I cannot betray a promise. But I will help you to return that—object to its owner.”

“Nay,” Mary said to both. But he was already hustling out the door. Then back in again to retrieve his hat. And mercifully out for the last time. Bang! A welcome sound. She turned toward a smiling Lillian.

“It’s Roger!” Lillian cried, running to take Mary’s hands. “He’ll need a physician, but he’s alive!” She dissolved into happy tears on Mary’s shoulder, snuffling into the neckerchief Eliza had embroidered for Mary’s last birthday. “He’s home. He’s sleeping. He’s safe! No, not safe, but home. My darling love, home!”

“Really? Astounding!” said Mary, though she was still feeling unstrung from the encounter with Ashcroft. “Do sit down. Tell me how—”

“I don’t believe a word that man said,” Dulcie scuttled past to hiss in Mary’s ear. “Did you see his nose twitch when he spoke? He has Miss Isobel’s will all right. He’s the one would’ve picked it up. We must get it back.”

“Quite true,” Mary said, sotto voce. “But I’ve a guest, Dulcie. We’ll speak of that later.”

“Mary, will you come? To hear Roger’s story? I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to keep him safe.” Lillian peered into Mary’s face, her eyes shiny and wet, a gloved hand outstretched.

“Of course I will! You can count on me.” Mary squeezed the hand.

“I daren’t leave him alone for long,” Lillian said breathlessly, jumping up. “I must go. I’ll expect you at four, shall I? We must find him a place to hide. I only wanted to give you the good news.”

Mary was glad for Lillian, but after the young woman ran out, she felt as if she had been put on a rack and stretched. How was she going to keep Roger Peale safe? It was clear that he hadn’t taken the painting, but he was still a suspect, and he had escaped from Newgate. And Ashcroft had given her a confidence she didn’t want to harbour. All she really wanted now was to sit down and write—write out her feelings, her frustrations. It was not Part Two of Vindication that she wanted to write: it was fiction. Or fact disguised as fiction. She longed for happy endings, to bring order into the chaos of her world. And though Peale was out of his madhouse—in part a happy ending—was he really free? He must go into hiding—but where?

And furthermore, she thought, looking at the mantel clock that was marching on towards one o’clock, where was Annie? Why had she not come home? Why did she have to keep her mistress in a constant state of worry?

Mary would go to see Roger Peale; she would find a place to hide him. But on the way she would report a missing girl.