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“It’s not at all what it looks like,” Marianne said hastily, trying to sound calm. “He wants my help.”
“Oh, you poor innocent lamb,” Phoebe said. “He does not. It’s a ruse. He wants his wicked way with you. Have you read none of the novels that I have given you? And besides, you can do much better than give yourself up to a rugged old traveller.”
“He is not old.”
“You have only just met him – don’t defend him! If you wish to marry, dear cuz, then simply say the word and I shall mobilise my considerable forces in society all on your behalf. We shall find you the perfect husband.”
“Do not dare.”
“Well, then, come and join the game. I am winning. You must let that continue, of course. Don’t get mathematical with the cards, or we shall never find you a husband.”
***
MARIANNE STAYED OUT of Mr Bartholomew’s grasp for the rest of the evening. Mr and Mrs Jenkins, being sober types, did not outstay their welcome, and when they left, so did Mr Bartholomew. It was then an early night, relatively speaking, for the household. Price claimed to have an attack of dyspepsia, and retired to his bedroom. Marianne and Phoebe stood by the fire for a little while, letting it die down while they finished the wine. Marianne told Phoebe everything that Mr Bartholomew had said and how he had begged for her help.
“But that is nonsense,” Phoebe cried. “You are right – it is no business of yours. This is not at all what you do – no, not your type of investigation at all. Why, I don’t think it is his father that needs a doctor. The son needs an alienist, you were correct! He is not well in the head.”
“I quite agree.”
“I shall have words with Price. He ought not to have invited an unstable man into the house. He shall not be admitted again. I knew he was too ... unpolished.”
“Indeed.”
Phoebe looked at her sideways. “You’re curious, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Of course I am. Aren’t you?”
“Yes. Will you visit him, then, as he asked? You must not. Except ...”
“Absolutely not! I am curious but not a fool.”
And she meant it, too.
***
THE BEEF, WHILE LOVELY, had been the best part of the meal; Marianne had picked at the rest of the vegetables, and now she felt hungry. Mrs Cogwell was an excellent cook so she could only imagine that one of the maids had been left in charge of the carrots and potatoes. She went to her room, but jumped up again as soon as she had sat down at her dressing table. It was no use. If she went to bed with a grumbling belly, she’d wake in the morning with a headache. She took up a stout candlestick, lit the candle, and made her way through the silent dark corridors, heading for the kitchen. Only the hallway was still lit by the gas lamp, and Mr Barrington would be along to turn it off very soon.
The problem with the gas was the way the companies cut the flow of the stuff at night; often the lights would go out, but the gas would continue to seep into the room. More than one housemaid in England had blown her eyebrows off – or worse – when lighting the fire in the morning. Marianne had read all about Swan’s lights in the marvellous house of Cragside, and she longed for such electrical wonders to be available more widely. Anything would surely be better than dirty candles and smelly gas.
The candle’s light sent up huge guttering shadows to the walls of the corridor on either side. She slipped along the back way, and the bare red tiles struck cold even through the soles of her slippers. She knew she would find the kitchen empty, and still warm. It was a little haven, and she smiled as she entered. At night, it was made strange by new reflections and shadows. The rows of copper-bottomed pans shone like small suns, and her slightest movement made them shimmer. She moved quickly through the kitchen and into a much colder storeroom, hunting for some discarded piece of pie or a hunk of yesterday’s bread. Who knew what delights lingered under the muslin cloths or overturned bowls.
She managed to pilfer two boiled eggs, some bread and a wedge of sweet, crumbly cheese. She wrapped them in a scrap of fabric and scurried in triumph back into the main kitchen.
It was lucky that she’d wrapped it all up, because it didn’t make a mess on the floor when she dropped it in surprise.
“Mr Claverdon!” she said. She had never seen her cousin-in-law in the kitchen. Nor had she ever yet brought herself to call him Price to his face, though she could manage it sometimes in her own private thoughts. She maintained strict politeness when she encountered him in day to day life. She knew that he wasn’t exactly devoted to her, and he only barely tolerated the presence of her father too.
He was as shocked as she was. He was wearing a greatcoat, and had his hat on, and he froze. He had been creeping through the unlit kitchen towards the door to the inner hall, and he blinked as she lifted the candlestick higher.
“Ah! Miss Starr. Oh.”
She said, “Is everything all right, sir?”
“Yes. No. Yes, most certainly. Your things? You seem to have dropped something.”
She slid the candlestick onto the long scrubbed table and bent to retrieve her stolen midnight feast. “Nothing is damaged,” she said as she scooped up the now-smashed eggs which were mingling with the broken cheese. It was still food. It would now take less effort to chew.
“Miss Starr, please don’t mention this trifling aberration to my dear wife.”
That gave her pause. “I would not have; until you said that,” she said sternly. She had thought he might have been taking the air or checking the security. But “aberration” made everything different. Her first loyalty was to Phoebe, always. What was it that she had wanted to talk to Marianne about, earlier? She had hinted at some trouble in the marriage. “Sir, if you are indulging your basest tastes, like some young man about town, that ought to be your own business but if you are to bring shame upon my cousin, why then, no, I shall not be silent.”
He sighed heavily. “You do me a disservice. I may have faults, but straying from my dear wife’s side is not one of them. You may rescind your attack.”
Marianne had to concede that the idea of Price having an affair was barely credible. In spite of the age gap, they doted on one another. Price adored his vivacious young wife and in the first few years of marriage had been positively puppyish, even in public. More than one lady had been scandalised by their sweet talk.
“Then may I ask what the trouble is?” she asked.
“Trouble? Who says there is trouble? Have you heard something? Has there been talk? I will not stand for talk.”
“I think that I am the talk of the moment,” Marianne said. “No. But trouble is written on your face, your manner, and the fact that you are creeping through the kitchen and speaking of aberrations. You have been out. You do not have dyspepsia at all, as you earlier claimed.”
“I do now, with all the stress and alarms. Well, then, I shall tell you under strictest confidence. Indeed, you might be able to help me. I had thought of telling you, recently, more than once. You are trustworthy. And God knows, someone needs to know.”
Oh for heaven’s sake, she thought crossly. Everyone wants me. That Jack Monahan, then Simeon, then Mr Bartholomew and now this! Can people not organise their own lives? She thinned her lips and nodded for him to go on.
“I have been unwise,” Mr Claverdon said. He gripped the back of a kitchen chair and stared down at his knuckles as he unburdened himself. “I was approached by someone from the government, who was concerned about ... a business matter at Harper and Bow, and naturally being the true patriotic Englishman that I am, I agreed to help them.”
“Good, so far...”
“Well, as to that,” he said, coughing slightly, “I was misled. To my everlasting and undying shame, the person from the government was not who they said they were. I passed on my company’s information to them, and now they have information which privileges them, and puts me in a most awkward position.”
“You must speak to the authorities!” she said in shock. How could he have been so stupid?
But he was an honest man – usually – and expected everyone else to be exactly who they said they were, too. He would never have done such a thing, so it was hard for him to imagine someone else might do it.
“I cannot,” he said. “Every day in the papers we read of one more scandal. If even the Earl of Euston can be named in the paper, then I do not think that I can be overlooked.”
“I hardly think your ... case ... is similar to the affairs of Cleveland Street. Is it?” she added forcefully.
“No, no! Good heavens no. Nothing of the sort. This is just a little light ... aha ... blackmail.”
“Oh no.”
“I am afraid so. But they assure me that as soon as I have furnished them with the required amount, they will say no more of the matter.”
“Rubbish,” she said. “Blackmailers never stop. They will return again and again and bleed you dry. Your only recourse is the police.”
“Think of the shame that would be brought on my poor, dear Phoebe. Anyway, I have the money and I will pay them. Except I do not yet have the money. Much of it was tied up in the bank in China, and it has collapsed, and I am in something of an awkward position.”
“And you want my help? No, sir, you want the police.” Just as I told Mr Bartholomew just a few scant hours previously.
“No police! I thought, actually, you might advance me a loan.”
She nearly laughed. “I? I am hardly a lady of means.” I travel in the second class coach, she thought, and steal old bread from the kitchen. My gloves have been darned so many times they are grown very tight and I can only remove them by biting at the fingertips.
“You are a woman of independent business, and your father has enjoyed much fame in his time. I do not ask for a gift. Only a temporary arrangement. I have taken a loan from a bank in the City but I have to be careful who I approach. If I went to a large, well-known place, everyone would speak of it, and I cannot have people think that I am in trouble.”
“Honestly, you men are worse than women for all the emphasis on appearances,” she said. “I cannot allow people to think that my hair might be artificially coloured, but you cannot allow anyone to think you have a problem with the flow of credit. My father has no money at all. Science was not the career to make a great fortune.”
“Please,” he said in a begging tone, “anything that you might be able to do would help us enormously. Now that I have brought you into my confidence, I feel sure that you will be able to assist. Why not take on a new job? You set your own rates, do you not?”
The only potential investigation at the moment was the one suggested by Mr Bartholomew. Mrs Silver was currently telling everyone in London to avoid Marianne. Mr Bartholomew’s ridiculous begging loomed into her mind with a wearying inevitability. “Very well,” she said. “I will see what I can do.”
He left the room swiftly and she waited until he had definitely gone before trudging her way back to the garden wing.
***
SHE TOOK THE PURLOINED food into her study rather than fill her bed with crumbs, and sat at a desk. This room was attached to the other side of her father’s laboratory, though it was mostly herself that used the long bright room these days. His recent experiment had fizzled out, and had produced nothing more than an acidic smell which had persisted for days. She picked out the largest and most easily handled lumps of egg and cheese and bread, and ate with her left hand while she flicked through her diary with her right.
It was as she suspected. Now that Mrs Silver’s heir had withdrawn his retention of her services, she was uncomfortably free. The gossip about her would soon die down, and she did not fear that it would affect future commissions too severely. But for the moment, the diary was bare.
She wondered how much money Price needed. He was utterly foolish to begin paying the blackmailer. It would all have to come out, sooner or later. Her heart ached for Phoebe. Marianne vowed that she would be there to protect her, as much as she could.
She smoothed out the scrap of paper which displayed Mr Bartholomew’s address. It was not too hard to get to his house. She tapped it with her fingers as if she were thinking about the job.
But she had already made up her mind.
She’d accept.
A crash came from the laboratory and she jumped to her feet. Seven different unpleasant scenarios crowded her mind, but when she wrenched the connecting door open, she was met by the eighth possibility – her father, in a state of delirious distress, trying to prise the lid off a bottle of something green.
“How did you even get hold of absinthe?” she said sternly as she strode across the room and snatched it from his grasp. “If I tell Mrs Crouch, she will cane you like a child. Come along. To bed. Now!”