Twenty-Six

Reputed to be the oldest hospital in England, St. Barts was a teaching facility, and Woodforde, once a student, devoted free time to the students and patients of the hospital. Though in the middle of a research project with his respected former teacher, Dr. Abernethy, Woodforde came out with Josephs to the courtyard, climbed into the carriage, and listened to Emmeline’s request. She kept it brief, telling him only that the canal company was possibly a cover for an illegal scheme.

He searched her eyes. “Does this have anything to do with our recent conversations?”

“It’s possible.” She didn’t mention her uncle.

He nodded. “I trust your judgment, Emmie. I can’t leave my work currently, but if Josephs will come back into the hospital with me, I’ll give him a note to take to my valet. The list of investors is in my desk; Julian knows where. I would like to know the rest of this tale,” he said, looking at his pocket watch. “If Doctor Abernethy did not need me now I’d go with you. May I visit this evening?”

“Of course, Woodforde.” She steeled herself for telling him the worst. How he would respond to her revelations, she could not imagine.

They retrieved the list of investors at his home and returned to Chelsea. Birk, already wearing black armbands to show his respect for the sorrow of the royal family, greeted her at the door. Rattled by her day and all she had discovered, Emmeline still had to maintain a reasonable appearance in front of her butler. She told him that there were no parcels because they hadn’t bought any fabric; the drapers’ shop had been too busy and she didn’t wish to wait beyond the time she had already spent there.

A moment to breathe; that’s all she wanted. As Birk bowed and disappeared, she pulled off her gloves, noting the shadows in the hall that warped the wallpaper design. Hanging at eye level were the Hoppner painting of Emily, Leopold’s first wife, with their daughters, a gift from Emily’s father, and the painting of Emmeline and Maria when they were children, painted by Thomas Lawrence. There was another of her brothers by the same artist, but it was displayed at Malincourt, of course. She touched the silver card tray, which sat on the new Sheraton hall table, a recent purchase. The hall smelled of furniture wax and orange peel from a pomander Mrs. Riddle liked to make. Everything was exactly as she had left it.

And yet it was different, somehow.

Or maybe she was different. When she’d departed, she had simply intended to purchase fabric for herself and Fidelity, but now her world, her family, all her memories were altered.

Birk reappeared. “Pardon me, miss, but there are some letters. Would you like to have them in the drawing room, or …?”

“Upstairs. My room. Gillies, will you take the mail, please?” Gillies had carried in with her a package Simeon had given Josephs for Emmeline. She’d have to look at it and see what he and his journalist had discovered. “Tea, Birk. And perhaps have Cook send up something to eat. I’m famished.” She was going upstairs that moment to speak with Fidelity—she was dreading the conversation, but it must be done—and she hoped tea would soften the blow. How silly and futile that was, she already knew. Nothing could prepare her dear companion for the revelation that her old friend and beloved cousin was an abuser of children.

Fidelity was napping, which delayed the hour of revelation. Emmeline retreated to her own room, and while Gillies put away her outdoor things and tidied, she sat at her dressing table, opening and reading the mail. There was a letter from her brother Samuel, who was looking forward to marriage sometime in the future. He had the young lady picked out and she was agreeable; they had walked out a few times, and he had been received into her home most kindly. But his happiness must wait until he attained another living and could afford a better home. He was full of plans: small adjustments to his house, a leak in the roof mended, repairs to his barn, and news about his parishioners, but he wrote little about Leopold and his family, even though he lived in the vicarage on the Malincourt estate.

Lady Sherringdon had written to her as well. Emmeline had expected this letter after talking to Tillie when dropping Lindy off at the Sherringdon home, and she was curious as to the contents. Adelaide reported that she had rescued another little girl who was being abused, but she didn’t believe it was connected to the others. Emmeline remembered additional information the maid had told her of, that by way of the chain of household servants she’d learned that Sally, who had run away from Martha Adair’s home, was seen working as a sewing apprentice at an exclusive dressmaking shop.

Lady Sherringdon’s letter contained this information, too, and more. The rumors were true; this was the apprenticeship Sally had left Martha’s to attain. But how had Sally made the connections necessary? It was unthinkable that such a place should take in a begging girl who had no character reference to recommend her. She must have been vouched for, but by whom?

“Gillies, listen to this,” Emmeline said, and read part of the letter from Lady Sherringdon: “It is an exclusive shop, frequented mostly by the wealthy wives of tradesmen.” She frowned down at the sheet. “Martha told us she learned about Sally’s predicament in the Claybourne home from her housekeeper’s sister’s daughter’s—or her daughter’s sister’s—employer, if memory serves. So, to untangle it, the employer of her housekeeper’s niece, most likely, since the other doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe her housekeeper has a daughter, and even if she did, her housekeeper’s daughter’s sister would be the housekeeper’s daughter too.” She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, clearing the detritus from her mind. “Can we find out who that is, do you think?”

“I should think so, miss.”

“Why did I not follow up on this before? I gave up on it without a thought, but I should have asked you. I’m going to send Martha a note.”

“Why does it matter?”

“I’m not sure it does, but I’m uneasy about it all. I feel like there is something I’m missing. The murder is likely a simple matter; the two men who argued with Sir Henry killed him, or Ratter did and was in turn murdered for what he knew. But what if I am leaping to conclusions? I’ve been known to do that.”

“Aye, miss, a time or two.”

“If I send you on a task, to go back out to select black or gray fabric for a mourning gown and all the notions to go along with it, can you track down, perhaps, who recommended Sally to her position? We have the name of the dressmaker,” Emmeline said, waving her friend’s letter.

Gillies nodded. “I’ll do my best, miss.”

“Have Josephs take you. Tell Birk I have a headache and am sending you in my stead, in hope the drapers’ will be less busy. Tell him I wish at least one new mourning gown started immediately. That will give you the reason to visit the dressmaker’s.”

“Aye, miss,” Gillies said, wiping a smear of powder from the edge of the dressing table. She paused, looking down at Emmeline. “I’m sorry miss, about your uncle.”

“I feel … bereft,” Emmeline admitted, folding Adelaide’s letter. “Is it horrible that I almost wish he had died rather than to have learned this about him?”

“’Tis another death in a way, miss. It’s the death of what you believed about your family.”

“And it’s the death of any peace I had about my sister’s life. I thought I knew her, all her sorrows and troubles, but she hid her pain from me and I never guessed.”

“She hid the truth out of love for you.”

“That makes it so much worse. I would give anything to go back and learn it from her. Now I’ll never know the whole truth because Uncle Jacob …” She shook her head, unable to speak as sobs welled up, clogging her throat. She put her face in her hands and let it all go; Gillies put one arm around her shoulders as she wept.

Throat raw, tears spent, eyes red, Emmeline finally calmed. It would come again, she knew, as raw and awful as the moment Maria died from what was called a “wasting” disease. She could not eat and was wracked by pain, passing away in the Coleman Institute as a pale wraith, so thin her body barely made an impression in her bed. It was a horrible memory.

Gillies brought her tea and food, scones with preserves, then departed; Emmeline could hear voices downstairs and the closing of the front door behind her maid. There was much more to do and to ponder, and none of it was served by dissolving in tears. She opened the package from her publisher, that he had given Josephs. Simeon wrote that he had received many notes from the public about the murder, and there were clues to follow up if she was able. She shook her head, not sure she was. He then said that he had had a man watching the Claybourne house closely who had noted some interesting visitors, among them Miss Aloisia Hargreaves.

Why would she be visiting Lady Claybourne once again? With all that had happened, Emmeline had put aside finding out more about Miss Hargreaves, but that was about to change.

Also, Simeon had received the name and address of a woman who had worked for the Claybournes but was now living in retirement in the home of her daughter and son-in-law (the young woman had married well, a barrister) in Cheapside. He suggested she visit the woman, who wrote claiming to have information on the knight’s household that would surprise. Simeon suspected the former employee would need a bribe to part with information, and he promised to reimburse Emmeline. He planned to publish in the paper anything startling she could glean.

That would be a task for the next morning, Emmeline decided, along with a visit to Miss Hargreaves.

She wrote a couple of Rogue columns and the note to Martha, as well as a letter to Samuel and one to her eldest niece, Amelia, who would be coming to London for the Season next spring. As the youngest princess’s namesake and a sensitive girl, Amelia would be saddened by the princess’s death. Knowing Leopold, he would not heed any lowering of spirits in his eldest daughter. Rose, his wife, was with child again, and Amelia could likely use a kind word or two.

Even as she wrote, Emmeline was aware that she was avoiding thinking about her uncle. She wanted to rage, to unleash her fury. But she had been too well trained, perhaps, in the art of submerging her feelings and appearing calm in the face of devastation. It had not escaped her that slipping out as the Avengeress was, for her, an outlet of her wildest impulses, a dangerous but heady game that could, if she were discovered, destroy her reputation and send her into exile. It was in effect a way of controlling those wild impulses, channeling them into what she considered appropriate actions.

And now her uncle, the very one whose furtive habits she was about to expose, held her secret identity in the palm of his hand. She had trusted him when she told him, not yet knowing what he was. Exposing him could destroy them both, or … she could hide the truth about him, keeping both herself and him safe. She felt no urge to save him, even if it should end in her own ruin.

“Emmie?” Fidelity called, tapping on her door. “Are you awake?”

Emmeline set aside her pen, corking the ink bottle and sanding the letter to Amelia. She now had to face something she dreaded. She loved her uncle and was devastated by his feet of clay. How was her companion, who had loved him since her own childhood and depended on his kindness and friendship, going to take his disgrace? “Come in!”

Fidelity entered and crossed the room swiftly. “My dearest Emmeline, I hear you are feeling under the weather! I sympathize; I have been chilled all day. There is a storm coming.” She wrapped her soft woolen shawl tightly around her shoulders and crossed to the window, staring out over the smokestacks of the townhomes of Chelsea. “It’s so gloomy. Winter approaches. How I wish I were somewhere warm!”

“Fiddy, dearest, please sit. We need to talk.” This was not going to be easy. Emmeline ordered more tea.

It was every bit as hard as she had imagined, and worse. Emmeline laid out every instance, even about the Maidenhead Canal Company, Sir Jacob’s involvement in it, and her suspicions of his abuse of Maria. Fidelity simply didn’t believe her. Against every argument, every example, even her insistence that Sir Jacob had as good as confessed his behavior, Fidelity saw it as a misunderstanding that would be cleared up on the morrow. She retreated to her bedroom.

Though Woodforde had been planning to visit that evening so Emmeline could tell him about the canal company, he was called away to a patient. He sent a note, asking her to let him know when it was convenient for her to see him. She wasn’t sure and didn’t respond immediately, grateful she didn’t have to talk about it after all.

Gillies returned with fabric and information. Sally was, indeed, apprenticed at the dressmaker’s. “And who is one of their most valuable customers?” the maid asked.

Emmeline waited.

“None other than Lady Claybourne herself.”

It had been an odd progression of events that led Emmeline to Sir Henry’s to rescue Molly. That Martha had confused the description of the person who had told her about the abuse in the Claybourne home wasn’t surprising, given that Martha was prone to confusion, but whether she had been merely confused, forgotten things, or been manipulated was unclear to Emmeline. Martha did lack the ability to think clearly at times.

Perhaps it was a minor tangle, but Emmeline wanted a clear understanding of how it had all gone so wrong, so she pieced it together, writing it down as she had begun to understand it through various channels: Martha’s housekeeper, Mrs. Dunleavy, had a niece, Biddy, who was in service at the Farnsworth residence at number 74 Blithestone, next door to the Claybournes. Biddy was good friends with Sybil, the Claybourne maid; the two young women seemed, from her own observation, to be close friends and confidantes, as was natural.

And … Biddy also visited the Adair household on occasion to see her aunt. Martha had mentioned that her husband was upset with their maid for gossiping with Biddy one day when the girl was visiting. That would be Ellen; Emmeline remembered her as a red-haired, fresh-cheeked, pleasant girl. So it was likely Ellen, not Mrs. Dunleavy, who could have overheard Mrs. Adair talking about “rescuing scullery maids” and passed the gossip to Biddy, who then talked to Sybil in the Claybourne home. Back and forth flowed information and gossip, and so had come word that poor little Sally, scullery maid to the Claybournes, needed rescuing.

Martha, happening to need a scullery maid right then and inspired by her work with the Crones, thought she’d do a little rescuing of her own. And so she got word to Sally by way of Sybil that she could come work at the Adair home. Sally had agreed and snuck out of the Claybourne home, making her way to Martha’s. Rather intrepid, given the poor girl’s history, but that appeared to be how it occurred. From that time to this, though, Sally had not repaid Martha’s charity with steady work. Given her past abuse and that she had been with child when she’d arrived, who could blame the girl?

But what if Martha’s true source of the information about Sally’s predicament was Lady Claybourne? Emmeline had used the chain of gossip herself on occasion, and though it was unreliable, it never, ever stopped. It was, at the very least, clear who had now helped Sally attain a valuable apprenticeship. Perhaps a guilty conscience prompted Lady Claybourne to help the child. Otherwise, why do such a thing?

Unless … Emmeline paused and stared with unseeing eyes out the window. Had the Crones been manipulated from the very start?

Emmeline did not attend church with Fiddy the next morning. Arbor, their new upstairs maid, a compassionate and intelligent girl, accompanied her. When they returned, Emmeline went to her room. Fidelity sat on her bed, a lost look in her eyes, her face drawn and gray with anguish.

“Are you going to be all right?”

“Children lie, Emmie. I won’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Not Jacob.”

“I know how difficult this has been for you to accept, but it’s true; your cousin, as much as you love him, has spent his life abusing girls, my beloved Maria among them. If you had seen his expression, you’d know I’m right. Please don’t visit him, though. Give me time and I’ll gather all the proof you need.”

Her companion didn’t answer. Emmeline hugged her, then clutched her shoulders and said, “Wait until I find out more before you judge me for what I told you.”

Fidelity, tears welling in her eyes, searched Emmeline’s face. “You don’t think he had anything to do with Sir Henry Claybourne’s death, do you?”

“Claybourne is on that list of Maidenhead investors. I don’t know. Lord Quisenberry, Fulmer, Wilkins … they’re all on the list. The description of the two men who were arguing with Sir Henry that night sounds like Wilkins, and …” She trailed off. The Frenchmen then would likely be her uncle’s valet, Pierre LaLoux. The description also fit the two men, out of place in the dirty warren of St. Giles, who were implicated in Ratter’s murder. Wilkins would most definitely have known the area, since by his own admission he owned buildings in that den of iniquity.

She jumped up. “Rest, my dearest. Read a book. I need Gillies with me, but Arbor will bring you tea and look after you. Don’t do anything until I return.”

Cheapside again; squeezed in between a coal merchant’s office and a larger home was the townhome of the former Claybourne employee’s daughter and estimable son-in-law. A young maid-of-all-work answered the door and led Emmeline and Gillies through a dark, narrow passage to a small sitting room that looked out over the busy street.

Mrs. Winwright was a tiny, wizened apple dumpling of a woman, settled in a deep chair near the fire, placed so she could see the street through the bow window. The maid brought a tea tray and then was sent away with a “shoo, girl!”

Emmeline wanted whatever information the woman had. What remained to be seen was the worth of it and the price. But Mrs. Winwright was in no hurry and insisted on telling them her story. She had worked for Sir Henry’s family first as a housemaid and then as cook, and had known him since he was born.

“’E were pretty when ’e was young, wiv blonde curls over ’is for’ead. But ’e ’ad an evil eye an’ started young. Joost ten ’e was when ’e started pinchin’ bums. Ev’ry chance ’e’d get, ’e’d corner a maid.”

It was a pattern, it appeared, from what Miss Honeychurch had also revealed. “Didn’t his parents teach him not to abuse the servants?”

“The master weren’t gonna interfere when ’e was busy havin’ it off wiv any maid as would let ’im.”

“Like father like son,” Emmeline said.

“When ’e got ta be sixteen—”

“Wasn’t he sent to school by that age?”

“’E were delicate, ’is mama said, and the master didn’t care. Anyways, when ’e were sixteen or so ’e cornered a little scullery maid and ’ad ’is way wiv her. More ’n once, I think, lookin’ back. She were a dark little thing; not pretty but smart enough. She started to show, an’—”

“She became pregnant?”

“Aye.”

“Didn’t you tell the mistress?”

The woman gave her a withering glance, full of contempt. “’Ow d’ye think that little chat woulda gone? ‘Ey, mistress, yer son’s bin tupping the scullery maid against ’er will.’ What good would itta done ’er fer me to be let go?” She blinked back some water in her eyes and her tone shifted to remorse. “I woulda helped if I could, but I was in the family way meself, an’ lucky t’marry the groom an’ keep me post.”

Emmeline was chastened, and silent.

“Anyway, ’Enry kept at ’er and got caught by the mistress finally in the act; she saw the state the girl was in—poor child looked like she was carryin’ a puddin’ basin under ’er pinafore—and turned ’er away. Girl was an orphan. No place to go, no character, nothing.”

“What happened to her?”

“What d’ye think ’appened?”

“Did she die?” Emmeline asked, fearful.

“Nup, but the babe did, I ’eard. Was born in a spongin’ ’ouse an’ died after takin’ a first breath. Girl was sent away as soon as she could walk, an’ did what girls like that hafta do.”

“Turned to prostitution.” Emmeline sighed. “But what does this have to do with the news you wish to share?”

The woman eyed her, squinting. “It’s worth yer ’earin’ about, lemme tell ya. Worth a pretty penny, too.”

Emmeline gazed at her steadily. “You wrote to the paper that you worked in Sir Henry’s current household?”

“Became cook there after Sir ’Enry’s mother died. Worked fer Sir ’Enry and Lady Claybourne up till two years ago.”

“And he was still up to his old tricks with the scullery maids.”

“Didn’t know at first; ’e’s gotten a mite carefuller.”

“Does any of this have to do with Sir Henry’s death?”

“Might do,” she said. “But I’ll see the color o’ yer money first, miss.”

The negotiation was quick. They settled on a price and Emmeline paid, counting out the coins. “So, tell me.”

“I was cook when th’last ’ousekeeper left Sir Henry’s employ an’ Lady Claybourne interviewed for a new one. Didn’t interview many; coom upon one she couldn’t refuse. Turned out t’be someone ’oo knew Sir ’Enry pretty well. It’s ’oo that little scullery maid from th’past becoom that’s important, y’see. Took a new name when she went back into service.”

“What is her name now?”

“Sir ’Enry never knew ’oo she was, but I reconnized ’er. Same look in them dark eyes. Mrs. Young, she calls ’erself nouw. Lady Claybourne ’ired her as ’ousekeeper.”