Merriment opened her eyes. Janey Mack stood at the side of the bed staring down, her pale face ghostly white, her huge eyes blinking expectantly. She smelled of sweet dog rose soap. She had been scrubbed clean in a tin bath the night before and dressed in an old shirt Merriment couldn’t throw away. A thin shaft of morning sunlight slipped through a narrow slat in the bedroom shutters. It cast a shaft of ruby light over Janey Mack’s puzzled face.
‘Morning.’ Merriment sat up in the bed. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Just checking.’ Janey Mack grinned, her little face suddenly bursting with an excited light. ‘Thought ye were dead.’
‘In my bed? You thought I was dead in my bed?’
Janey Mack shrugged.
‘I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was dead,’ Janey Mack said, implying there was nothing unusual about mistaking life for death. ‘The bed was so soft and I was so warm and cosy I thought God had carried me off.’
Merriment glanced over at the crumpled makeshift bed before the small fireplace. She’d thrown a couple of cushions down on the floor and folded an old blanket in half and Janey Mack thought she’d died and gone to heaven.
‘And this isn’t a dream,’ Janey Mack told her. The little girl unhooked the long latch fastening the shutters and pushed them open. A blazing red sunrise flooded into the spartan bedroom. The grey painted walls blushed, the embroidered throw shone, and crimson sunlight fell in a rectangular pattern across the varnished floorboards. Merriment puffed up the pillows behind her, not for one moment regretting her spur-of-the-moment decision to take on an eight-year-old assistant. Janey Mack climbed onto the window seat and stood looking down at the street below.
Already Fishamble Street was busy. She could see hawkers making their way up to the Christchurch market, some had barrows stacked high with barrels of winkles and cockles, others had hot pies and freshly baked bread. She saw a milkmaid coming in from the country. The maid drove two cows before her and carried a stool, a pail and a quart jug to measure out her milk.
‘Two whole pounds, miss,’ Janey Mack said, not taking her eyes from the view. ‘I can’t get my head around it.’
‘You know what I can’t get my head around. That there was a little girl underneath all that muck.’
‘Are ye a bit touched, miss?’ Janey Mack swung round. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted you’re not the full shillin’ since I benefit hugely from your ailing mind, but two pounds, miss, for me . . . it beggars belief.’
Merriment nodded.
‘Well, try and believe it.’
‘Oh, no doubt I’ll get over the shock of it, in time. But Hoppy John, I think he thought all his Christmases had come at once. His head nearly fell off when you suggested the exchange.’
‘I see it as a prime investment.’
Merriment bounced out of bed and grabbed her breeches, tugging them under her nightdress and rummaging underneath the bed for her stockings.
‘See, there ye’ll be sorely disappointed, miss.’ Janey Mack jumped down and stepped across the brightening floor. The sky turned pale pink and yellow.
‘Why will I be disappointed?’ Merriment pulled on her shirt, shivering a little in the sharp morning air.
‘There’s no way for me to sweeten the salt in me words, miss, but ye’ve set a high expectation with the price ye paid for me and I can’t help but fall short of all the grand things you think that two pounds measures in my person.’
Merriment laughed.
‘You’re serious in the morning, Janey.’ Then she added, ‘You don’t think you’re worth two pounds, is that it?’
Janey Mack frowned, fiddling with the brocade fringe on the bed cover. ‘On reflection,’ she announced, ‘and according to the church scriptures, a person is a priceless thing, worth more than money and possessions.’
‘There we are. Exactly.’
‘But.’
‘There’s a but?’
‘What the scriptures say and how it turns out to be are two very different things.’
‘You’re worth two pounds, Janey.’
‘It’s like Solomon’s mother.’
‘King Solomon?’
‘No. Solomon Fish, with his mother calling him Solomon on account of her expecting him to become rich and move to Babylon to play the harp and pick fruit in the garden.’
Merriment laughed, bewildered. She dragged on her boots and buttoned up her waistcoat.
‘I’m going to have to teach you to stick to the point, Janey. Although on the other hand I do like your circumvent ing.’
Janey Mack wanted to ask if her circumventing was near her head. Instead she made her point. ‘Solomon’s mother thought by giving him a fancy name he’d have a fancy life. And you think by buying me for two whole pounds you’ll get the fairness of your price out of me. But I’ll never fulfil the task and you’ll quickly realise that I don’t concentrate and that will set your teeth on edge and then you’ll sit and consider. And the long and the short of it is, miss, ye’ll regret the overpayment for my purchase and resent the burden of my employment and be forced to conspire to be rid of me.’
‘I see.’ Merriment stopped making the bed. ‘Is it always an opera with you, Janey?’
‘I say it as it is, miss.’
‘You say it as you perceive it to be. How you see it and how it is may not be one and the same thing, and anyway that’s not the point. You think all of this is too good to be true. Well, it’s not. I mean, it is true, and you are now an apprentice to an apothecary and you’ll have chores to do. It won’t be all dilly-dallying and pleasantries.’
‘But, Janey Mack, two whole pounds. How will I live up to the price of it?’
‘I’ll decide that.’
‘We’re doomed.’
Merriment laughed, her whole face radiant and suddenly youthful.
‘We are not doomed. You have the most baroque imagination. Well, you know what they say.’ She brushed her long auburn hair, clawing in the wayward silky curls and fastening it with a leather thong. ‘If it’s not baroque don’t fix it!’ Merriment laughed warmly at her joke, showing the gap in her neat teeth. ‘Get it?’ she asked Janey Mack.
‘No, miss. And that will be another thing that will gall you and turn you against me. I won’t get your jokes.’
Janey Mack looked troubled. She stood twirling the brocade, mulling things over. Once all the silt was washed out, her hair was honey gold not dirty brown. Her features were small and pert. But her eyes were her most haunting attribute; beneath all their innocence they were filled with a shocking depth of wisdom. She stood in a square of yellow sunlight, trying to explain to Merriment that this arrangement was going to fall apart.
Merriment tipped the end of her hair brush, pushing it further onto the narrow table.
‘Janey,’ she said, choosing her words carefully, ‘you’ve had an uncertain existence. It has made you unsteady. So here’s my promise. You’re going to live here and train with me, and come under my care. And every day you will work with me and soon it will be so familiar that you will forget you were ever worried about me throwing you out and leaving you to fetch for yourself. The only way I can reassure you is to keep you safe and in a routine. That will quieten your insecurity.’
‘But . . .’ Janey Mack didn’t want to tempt fate but it was her training – no stone could be left unturned. First rule of scavenging – you root and poke and make certain you’ve missed nothing.
‘But?’ Merriment said softly.
‘Why would you be so kind?’
‘No reason. Kindness can exist in and because of itself. We are human beings, Janey, not animals. Kindness is in our nature.’
‘All I know, miss, is people are self-pleasing. All good things come with a price.’
‘That just isn’t true.’
‘That’s ’cause you’re a romantic, miss, ran away to sea because you thought that lad downstairs was worth it. What good did it do ya? Where’s he now? Off dallying with his shipmates and here you are parting with good money to buy my company.’
‘You think I bought you because I’m lonely?’ Merriment smarted under the little girl’s keen observation. ‘I’m not lonely, Janey. I’m not sad. I’m content and ambitious. I like my studies. I like dry land. I like my life. For God’s sake, I like you, Janey.’
‘What’s to like? Hoppy John says I’ve a blistering tongue clacking about in my head and I’ll never have any friends on account of it.’
‘Hoppy John’s a bitter man. You’re a very bright, lovely girl. Now, have a little faith that sometimes good things just happen.’
‘Suppose.’ Janey Mack scratched her knee. ‘If such a bad thing can happen like what happened to Jo-Jo Jacobs then . . .’ Janey Mack paused and looked about the brightly lit bedroom, taking in all its spare and elegant details. ‘Then maybe a good thing can happen too for no rhyme or reason.’
Merriment tried to quash the sudden pang of pity she felt. Life was hard, for everybody, and Janey Mack was not fooled by soft cushions and scented soap. She knew that the fragile balance between relative happiness and desolate, unremitting despair could be disturbed by a light breeze at any moment. Merriment wanted to reassure her, but she understood that words would not do the trick. Only the gentle, repetitious familiarity of being kind and thoughtful would help Janey Mack to believe that sometimes good things just happen.
‘After breakfast,’ Merriment said, flinging a shawl towards the little girl, ‘we are going round to the pawnshop and buying you some clothes and a pair of shoes.’
Janey Mack bounced, jumping from one leg to the other, throwing off her previous mood. She clenched her fists and squeezed them to her cheeks, her whole body shaking. She spun around in circles and squealed with delight.
‘Really? Really?’
She was just checking the air with a question; in reality she wasn’t listening. Instead her imagination was already full of elegant shifts with neat ribbons and long sleeves. She even allowed herself to dream of a cream-coloured petticoat trimmed with broderie anglaise.
‘I can’t have you working in the shop in a tattered old shirt. I threw your dress into the fire last night.’
Merriment flung the door open and tripped lightly down the stairs, followed by Janey Mack, who was laughing because she’d never known good fortune and she was drunk on the experience. She patted the wallpaper saying hello to the yellow canaries trapped in brown cages and ran after Merriment through the shop and into the anteroom.
They had bread and butter for breakfast. Merriment stoked up the fire and Janey Mack sat with her feet extended, roasting her soles in the delicious heat. Merriment washed Janey Mack’s hand, reapplied a nettle salve for the burn and wrapped it in a fresh bandage. She brushed Janey Mack’s hair and took a look at her prescriptions, beginning to make up the simple recipes.
There was a rap on the shop door.
Janey Mack froze, her bread suspended before her lips. She stopped chewing, a big wodge of bread bulging in her cheeks. She blinked her huge eyes, her heart pounding hard against her thin ribs. Was this it? Was everything going to come tumbling down? Was it the orphanage? A beadle? Had Hoppy John double-crossed her in some way?
Merriment wiped her hands and stood in the doorway, looking across the shuttered shop.
‘I’ll get that.’
Janey Mack scarpered from her chair and with a wild instinct for self-preservation hid behind a large ceramic jar over near the back door. She heard the bolt on the shop door slide back. Voices. Female voices. They came in. They were coming towards the anteroom.
‘Had to drag her in here,’ a girl said. ‘Would you look at her, her eyes popping out of her head like her face might burst. Come on, Stella, for God’s sake.’
It was Anne MacCarrick. Janey Mack dashed from her hiding place and was standing at her chair eating her bread when Merriment led the two girls in.
Anne looked about the dark room and sniffed.
‘You work in a bit of a dungeon there, Misses O’Grady. Well, look at this.’
She stepped toward Janey Mack and flung her gloved hands onto her hips.
‘By God, that’s not little Janey, is it?’
‘It’s meself.’ Janey Mack straightened up.
‘Don’t you polish up neat as a shiny new penny? And hasn’t she the softest hair? I wouldn’t have recognised you.’ She spun round to Stella. ‘She was mucked up to the eyes yesterday, like something you’d find at the bottom of a cookin’ pan, and now look at her, pretty as a dove.’
Janey Mack nodded, feeling she deserved every compliment thrown her way, all because rose-scented soap and Merriment O’Grady possessed some kind of transformative magic. She had been dusted with fairy dust and had come up sparkling.
‘I’m gettin’ a new dress,’ she announced.
‘Lucky sausage.’
Anne sat down and laughed at Stella standing petrified in the doorway ready to run if the occasion required.
‘Would you look at her, Misses O’Grady, shaking in her boots. She’s terrified, so she is.’
‘Did you get a fright, love?’ Janey Mack asked.
That made Anne laugh louder. She pointed her thumb at Janey Mack and said to the others, ‘She’s like a little aul’ one, isn’t she?’
‘Can I offer you two girls some blueberry cordial?’ Merriment took a huge glass bottle from a shelf and poured the dark purple liquid into four cups.
‘That’s very nice of you.’ Anne removed her soft grey gloves carefully, bobbed her cup in the air and made a swift toast.
‘Bottoms up.’ She took a long glug and smacked her lips together. ‘Now,’ she said, getting down to business. ‘Stella, come in, for God’s sake. You’re not going to go to hell.’ Anne looked up at Merriment. ‘She’s convinced that my suggestion, what I was chattin’ to yous yesterday about, is a sin and that she’ll be damned to roast in Satan’s fires if she so much as tries to calm her father down.’
‘He’s . . .’ Stella stuttered. She had long dark curls and a sombre, pale face, a large nose and thin lips and when she frowned a deep line shaped like a Y cut into her forehead.
‘He’s a blackguard, Stella, plain and simple, and he needs his wings clipped.’
Janey Mack leaned onto the arm of the chair. ‘Does his piddle smell funny?’ she asked.
Merriment pressed her lips between her teeth but the smile danced in her eyes. Janey Mack was a quick learner. Stella looked east and west.
‘Well . . .’ She seemed confused. Anne waved her hand.
‘You’ve looked in his pisspot, Stella, you’re the only one to clean it. Tell them.’
‘It stinks to high heaven.’ The words burst from Stella and all her pent-up reservation escaped on a tide of full disclosure. ‘He’s very bad-tempered, Misses O’Grady. Thinks everyone is again’ him. Men. Women he’s only bumped into. He’s convinced they’ve insulted and slighted him by a look, never mind a word. And if he takes a skunners against someone, that’s it, he’ll think bad of them for life. He’s suspicious of everyone and everything. He hates me, ’cause I’m “as bad as the rest of them”, he says. He’s very selfish, wouldn’t share the crust of his bread with me, never mind the dog. And then there’s his rages. They come sudden and out of nowhere.’
‘Her nerves are gone,’ Anne chimed in. ‘Sure, look at her, she’s destroyed with nervous exhaustion. Wouldn’t you say so, Misses O’Grady?’
‘Does he complain of ulcers in the mouth?’ Merriment asked, pulling out her large red ledger.
Stella’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
‘He does.’
‘And does he get sharp stabbing pains?’
‘All the time.’ Stella was amazed.
‘Piles?’
‘Never shuts up about them.’
‘Acid in the stomach?’
‘Worse after he has had milk.’
Merriment put on a large pair of thick leather gloves, tied a scarf over her mouth and took a small vial down off a shelf. She undid the cork carefully, holding the jar out at arms-length. Stella and Anne stepped back to stand beside Janey Mack.
‘One sniff will kill ya,’ the little girl whispered.
Merriment nodded and Janey Mack retreated towards the back door.
‘I don’t want to do him in,’ Stella whimpered.
Merriment squeezed out ten drops of shiny liquid into an empty jar. Everyone watched the procedure in a reverential silence. She fetched a thick syrup from the press and mixed it into the drops. She re-corked the dangerous vial, removed her scarf and kept stirring the jug.
‘You’re not going to kill him, Stella. It’s just that raw nitricum acidum, or aqua fortis, is extremely corrosive. The fumes are choking and if truth be told one whiff and your heart would stop. This’ – she patted the syrupy edge of the jar – ‘is an extremely diluted portion. I’ve mixed it with molasses and I want you to give a spoon of it each morning to your father mixed in warm water. Tell him it is for his gut complaint and to ease the piles. You’ll notice a change in his outlook and demeanour in a week, he’ll have improved health and disposition in three weeks. We’ll reduce the dosage over time.’
She sealed the jar and held it up for Stella to take. Stella stood tall and uncertain, the candlelight falling in a slant across the chequered pattern of her woollen shawl. She couldn’t move.
‘She’s not helpin’ ye to murder yer father,’ Janey Mack blurted. ‘Sure she’d be flung into the Black Dog for that. It’s a cure.’
Spurned by Janey Mack’s reassurance Stella tentatively took the jar.
‘How much do I owe you?’
‘Two and nine,’ Merriment said, scribbling in the ledger. ‘You can pay me one and four now, one and five when you have it.’
Stella sighed, relieved. ‘Thank you.’
‘There now.’ Anne finished up her cordial and changed the subject. ‘The widow Byrne woke up in a great mood this morning. She came down to breakfast singing the praises of your chilblain cure.’
Someone knocked firmly on the shop door.
‘Busy this morning,’ Anne said, watching Merriment leave to answer it.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked Janey Mack.
‘Do I look like I can see through walls?’ But the minute she heard his voice, she recognised it.
‘It’s the lodger,’ she whispered hurriedly. ‘Didn’t come back last night, probably off galavantin’ with the ladies. He’s new to town. Likes cards and writes broadsheets.’
The two girls drank up the information.
‘Very handsome,’ Janey Mack told them and they both instinctively touched their hair.
‘I was all night in the hospital,’ Solomon said as he stepped into the room. He halted, his eyebrows rising quizzically. Anne’s long hair and casual manner caught his attention. Stella retreated half hidden into the shadows.
‘Ladies,’ he bowed politely. Merriment stepped in behind him and introduced everyone.
‘Mister Fish tells me he has a great story.’
‘Please, no formalities. Call me Solomon.’ Solomon left his bag on the floor, perched on the edge of the table, crossed his legs and folded his arms, confident and happy to be in female company. He looked pale, his features drawn, but his eyes were smiling. He shook his head and scratched it.
‘It’s the damnedest thing,’ he said. ‘The damnedest thing. I went over to the Black Dog to interview one of the guards, a man named Boxty, to enquire after Olocher. Get a bit of information on how he killed himself, what he was like, that kind of thing.’
Solomon’s captive audience nodded. Merriment quietly mixed and stirred and wondered how in the space of two days her laboratory had become so cluttered. Solomon started by describing the nunnery.
‘Dank and cold as the grave, and Olocher’s cell was still knee deep in blood.’
He told them all how unsettled he had felt, how Boxty quaked in the torchlight saying that Olocher used to sit and mumble to the devil, whispering like he was listening to something instructing him. He told them of the way Boxty’s gullet swallowed down lumps of fear and how his eyes shifted nervously.
‘So I left him. Told him I’d be back to interview Martin Coffey, the other turnkey, and I headed off.’
‘Janey Mack, the poor man. I wouldn’t like that job.’ The little girl looked at the poker resting against the fender, thinking it would be handy to defend herself with if a robber broke in.
‘That’s not the crux of the story.’
Solomon waved his index finger from side to side. His hands were stained with black ink. The girls were rigid with attention, their faces locked in an expression of intense concentration, intrigued by the fact that there was a crux. He strode to the fire, lifted the tails of his jacket and warmed his cheeks, his hands behind his back.
‘I lost my way out and ended up back at the nunnery. I thought to myself, Boxty will have to show me out. So I opened the door and what did I see at the bottom of the steps?’
There was a faint pause. Anne shifted to the edge of her seat. Stella emerged from the shadows. Janey Mack stepped forward.
‘Boxty was crawling towards me covered in stale blood.’
There were three loud gasps. Only Merriment didn’t react. She listened as she worked, methodically weighing out fine powders, fascinated that Solomon could saunter in and within minutes have everyone hanging on his every word.
Wouldn’t last a wet week at sea, she thought to herself. No sailor would put up with his palaver.
Solomon stood tall and, keeping his right side erect, he collapsed his left arm and leg as he described Boxty’s grotesque condition the night before.
‘He dragged himself across the floor, crying out, “Don’t leave me here, don’t leave me here.” Then . . .’
Solomon paused for effect.
‘What he said next beggars belief.’
Everyone strained to hear.
Solomon whispered, ‘Dolocher’s back.’
No one took a breath. No one moved. Seconds passed, until unable to bear the burden of the widening silence, Anne hoarsely said, ‘Dolocher?’ her eyes popping wide mixed with a frisson of terror and excitement.
‘That’s what Boxty said: he couldn’t speak properly. He’d had a fit. Something frightened him so bad that he’d been paralysed down one side of his body.’ Solomon craned forward and very slowly and deliberately announced what had happened.
‘He’d seen Olocher’s ghost.’
There was a communal intake of breath, swift glances exchanged and the word ‘never’ whispered incredulously.
Solomon nodded. ‘Worse than that, Olocher’s ghost was half man, half black pig.’
Janey Mack shook her head and swallowed.
‘How? Why?’ she shivered.
Solomon shrugged, ‘That’s the mystery. The chilling mystery. Boxty said he heard a noise in Olocher’s cell, crept in slowly, with his musket ready when out from behind the door jumped the malignant ghost of Olocher, a grunting black pig with hands and legs and the strength of the devil.’
‘Holy God.’ Janey Mack’s right hand clutched at the back of the chair, her knuckles white. ‘Is it true? Is Olocher back? From the grave?’
Solomon licked his lower lip. ‘All I can tell you is what Boxty told me and what I saw with my own eyes. I went with him to the hospital and he spent the whole night fretting, staring at his own shadow flickering on the wall, howling that “the Dolocher” had come to fetch him down to hell.’
‘Mother of divine . . .’ Anne breathed. Stella reached down and held Anne’s hand.
‘That’s not the worst of it.’ Solomon moved to one side, out of the direct heat of the fire and leaned on the mantle, looking a moment into the flames.
‘The nurse said he was bruised peculiarly. I mean, I saw the bruises myself, ugly big things on his ribs and arms.’
When Solomon looked up, he frowned like he didn’t believe he was going to say what he was going to say next. He glanced at Merriment. She caught the look, unsure of how to read it. Was he afraid? Perplexed? Guilty, maybe, of telling tall tales?
‘Boxty told me he had proof that Olocher’s savage spirit was after him.’
Merriment tapped a little box and crimson powder snowed into a tiny brass pan, yet despite appearances she was just as interested as everyone else to find out how you prove that the dead have come back to life.
‘He said he ripped something off Olocher’s ghost, something belonging to him.’ Solomon stroked his forehead and spoke a little slower, like he was working out some mathematical problem that needed to be articulated with caution in case a stray digit got lost in the mess.
‘What did he mean?’ Janey Mack stood near Anne, instinctively taking her other hand.
‘I didn’t know,’ Solomon said quietly. ‘He kept telling me to go and look behind the red door. So this morning I went down to the Black Dog and the guard that was on last night gave me a candle and let me into Olocher’s cell.’
Solomon looked over at Merriment. She had stopped working and was standing with scales in one hand and a tiny weight in the other, waiting with the others to hear what was worse than a demon with a pig’s head.
‘I found it in a corner under the bench.’ Solomon shoved his hands into his pockets, not sure how to formulate his discovery.
‘It was a lump of flesh, torn from Olocher’s throat.’
The girls gasped. Merriment raised an incredulous eyebrow. Solomon smiled, faintly embarrassed by the implications of his story. But as the girls babbled with intense excitement, overwhelmed with the idea that some preternatural creature had returned to exact a grisly revenge on its captors, Solomon perked up.
‘That is shockin’, so it is. Janey Mack, shockin’.’ Janey Mack looked up at Merriment, swallowing back the terror. ‘Up from the dead.’ She panicked a little. ‘Walked off the surgeon’s table with a new head and went to find his jailors.’
Anne patted her face, holding her fingers by her lips, shielding her eyes a little as she peeked at Janey Mack, watching the little girl’s outburst.
‘His flesh falling off, decomposing.’
‘Exactly what I wrote.’ Solomon grabbed his bag, pulled out a leaflet and handed it to Anne.
‘What’s it say?’ Janey Mack rushed to her side.
Stella read the words.
‘ “Olocher’s Ghost Returns to Haunt the Black Dog – The Dolocher.” ’
‘I wrote it while I sat with Boxty last night,’ Solomon said proudly. ‘Took his name for Olocher’s phantasm: the Dolocher. I thought it compounded the idea that what attacked him was neither a living nor a dead thing. Had to pay over the odds to get the printer to print me two thousand copies so I could have it out at this morning’s market. He’ll have the full batch ready in an hour.’
‘She sold Ringsend oysters,’ Stella announced, the cream leaflet shivering in her hands. Anne and Janey Mack both asked, ‘Who?’
‘Jo-Jo Jacobs. They think that’s how Olocher met her first. He bought oysters off her.’
‘Holy God.’ Anne shook her head. ‘How much is this, Mister Fish?’
‘A penny to you, Anne.’
Anne rummaged in her pocket. ‘The widow Byrne will want to hear about this. She’s done nothing but curse Olocher from one end of the week to the other. She knew Jo-Jo’s mammy.’
‘And I’ll have one.’ Stella timidly handed Solomon a penny.
He pocketed the money. ‘I’ve to hurry along and get the stall organised. It’s a chastening story, isn’t it, ladies?’
‘If you could believe the half of it,’ Merriment said brightly.
‘Sure, he saw the lump of flesh himself.’ Janey Mack’s eyes blinked, defending Solomon. ‘And he sat the night with the lad in the hospital fighting off the huge shadows on the wall.’
‘The man was raving,’ Merriment said confidently. ‘It’s one of the preliminary symptoms of apoplexy. The burst of blood to the brain causes the person to experience intense fear. They imagine all sorts, even demons.’
‘How do you explain the bruising?’ Solomon asked.
‘He fell down the stairs.’
‘And the lump of flesh?’
Merriment paused. ‘I’m sure there’s a rational explanation.’
‘It slid off Olocher’s dead bones,’ Janey Mack said. ‘That’s the rational explanation.’ Her face looked gaunt and troubled. ‘His flesh melted off him, stinkin’.’
Solomon gave a short, bright laugh and pulled his shoulders back. ‘She’s a great turn of phrase, hasn’t she?’ He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. ‘Did someone dip you in a bit of water?’
Janey Mack nodded vigorously, confused by being half frightened and half delighted at the same time.
‘You look very civilised, amazing to see the improvement a splash of water can make to an ugly face.’
Janey Mack’s jaw dropped. The girls giggled.
‘Yer own noggin is nothing to write home about.’
Solomon pinched Janey Mack’s cheek as he passed. ‘Ah now, don’t lie, if there’s one gift God gave me it was the gift of beauty.’
‘Be careful ye don’t fall over and destroy yerself with the weight of yer big head. Sure, y’er as plain as a plank of wood.’
‘We all know that’s not true,’ Solomon grinned, his eyes glittering with boyish glee. He had a cracking story to sell, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn a decent shilling and a chance to maybe alter his own fortune.
‘Bye, girls,’ he chirruped. Then, turning to Merriment, he flicked his head to one side, signalling that he wanted to speak to her alone for a moment. They stepped into the shop.
‘I wanted to go up to my room. Leave my bag there. Have a quick shave.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Thank you.’
His mouth moved like he was about to say something else. Whatever it was, he shook it off, smiled, bowed slightly and went upstairs.
Merriment pulled back the shutters on both windows and flipped the sign on the door. Shop was open. She was heading to the back room when the bell tinkled behind her. A footman entered; his gloves were snow white, his livery especially fine, made of the most expensive red cloth and trimmed with gold braid. He held the door open for a stylish young lady dressed in mother-of-pearl grey silk. She wore a black ribbon around her neck and as she entered, her tall white wig decorated with pink bows listed a little to one side.
‘Good morning,’ the lady said, unfazed by Merriment’s breeches. It was then that Merriment realised that for the first time in years she’d forgotten to put on her holster. Her pistol was still upstairs.
‘Hello, m’am.’ Merriment bowed politely.
‘I believe you sell something I require.’ The lady moved towards the counter, her fine eyes gliding over the contents in the glass cases. Anne and Stella emerged from the back room with Janey Mack close behind. Both girls staggered to a halt, drinking in the exquisite gown the powdered lady was wearing.
‘Girls, don’t gawp,’ the young lady smiled. She was very pretty, with high cheekbones both flecked with the barest dab of rouge, her lips were tinged a soft berry red, and her eyebrows were shaped into gentle arches that rose and crinkled expressively.
Anne smoothed her gloves and shook her long locks back, her competitive streak believing that she could hold her own natural beauty up to scrutiny against a rich lady any day. She caught sight of the lady’s pink-trimmed shoes and all her confidence crumbled. The lady caught the gleam of envy emanating from Anne’s blue eyes.
‘Aren’t they darling? I picked them up in Paris.’
‘You wouldn’t want to wear them down Dame Street,’ Janey Mack piped up. ‘They’d be covered in shite in no time.’
The lady laughed with her whole body and Anne forgave her her riches and her fine garments because anyone who knew how to laugh like that had a sense of humour.
‘That’s why I have a sedan chair outside,’ the lady finally said.
‘They’ll be glad with your fare,’ Janey Mack told her. ‘I saw a woman fat as an ox getting into one on George’s Street. The poor carriers were buckled under the strain.’
‘Yes, I eat very little,’ the lady told Janey Mack. ‘I’m as light as a feather.’
Anne and Stella said goodbye. Merriment sent Janey Mack into the back room and politely shut the door. The lady dismissed the footman to wait outside with a discreet wave of her hand. Then turning to face Merriment, she quietly leaned forward and said, ‘I believe you sell Misses Phillips’ Engine.’
‘That’s right.’ Merriment nodded.
‘I will require twenty please,’ the lady said, drawing out a crisp five-pound note from her studded purse. ‘I want my girls to be clean and safe.’
Merriment didn’t blink.
‘I don’t have twenty, but I can get them for you.’
‘And you can give my girls the once-over?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t want them traipsing through your shop, gives the impression they are contaminated. Can I employ you to make a house call?’
The lady slipped a card across the countertop. In simple black copperplate it read: Margaret Leeson, 17 Henrietta Street.
‘You can call me Peg,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Can you come tomorrow evening, sometime around seven?’
Merriment said she could.
Peg smiled and stood a moment scrutinising Merriment’s face.
‘You know,’ she said, tilting her head to one side, her wig teetering a little from the movement, ‘Beresford did mention your remarkable eyes, but said nothing of your fine tresses or figure.’
The remark landed a two-pronged sting in Merriment’s heart; on the one hand, she was intrigued and hopeful about the fact that Beresford had spoken about her in a flattering way; on the other hand, there was something about Peg’s tone and glint of possessiveness in her eye that shot Merriment with a pang of jealousy.
Smiling broadly and slipping on a pair of cherry-coloured gloves, Peg waved her hands coquettishly and piped up, ‘Men, eh?’
Then, leaving Merriment with the vaguest sensation of having being ambushed, Peg flitted out the door calling to her footman to take her to the nearest confectionary shop, while Merriment stood a moment washed over by a sudden wave of loneliness. She sniffed wryly, faintly amused that when spoken by a woman Beresford’s name could still sting her.