MAY

Thursday, 2nd May

Nothing from the missus. I keep to my room, only going out for meals and newspapers, and once to send my address to the vicarage. The other boarders are all young women, mostly maids who don’t want to live in, one with clerical work who looks so young she reminds me of Lily. Helen Dubois is a quiet girl, keeps to her room, likes to eat alone. Not very interesting.

In the mornings, I scour the papers for news of Mr Garston, for my own name as someone wanted. London is busy with other outrages – bank robberies, dead babies pulled from the Thames, the brink of war. It is an effort to stop myself from walking to Gloucester Square, to see if they have arrived, if only for a glimpse of her, to reassure myself all is well. I try to sew or write, hoping to recapture the stitch-by-stitch, word-by-word ordering of my mind. If I sit by the window there is enough light for most of the day, but I often find myself staring into the dingy yard, my mind growing thick with fears. It mithers me that she is so trusting of Laurence when she knows he is controlled by the master. What if she lets something slip? I write the letter to Francis’s parents over and over, begging them to remove him from the house – everything I have seen and know about the master goes into it. The more I remember, the more worried I am for the missus. At the same time my words seem unbelievable. I worry Francis’s parents will think me a liar, a wicked servant with a grudge, trying to cause trouble. I worry it won’t be enough.

Friday, 3rd May

I cannot do nothing; the waiting is torture. Instead of walking to Gloucester Square, I wrote to the Girls Friendly Society, asking about Lily. I don’t know which charitable organisation Clockface hauled her out of, but there can’t be that many for girls. Then I walked to all the servants’ registry offices I could find, especially the lower sort. I visited four in the hope that if she hasn’t returned to the charity place, she is at least trying to find domestic work. The master’s words haunt me – that she will be selling herself on the street by now.

Saturday, 4th May

Four more registry offices. Nothing.

Monday, 6th May

The Girls Friendly Society replied to say they don’t know her, but to try the association that befriends young servants. I walked to the address they gave, and from there was redirected to a different office. The woman in charge seemed very surprised that I’d come looking. She blinked a lot and asked me several times who I was. My heart leapt. Lily had indeed come back the day she left Finton Hall, but then vanished again after only one night. None of the other girls knew where she had gone, or so they said. The woman’s expression told me she had her own grim ideas but was keeping them to herself. I begged that she would write to me if Lily ever came back, and she softened slightly, seeing my concern, and said she would. I could see she held out little hope.

I tried two more registry offices, but my heart had gone out of it and my feet were sore. It seems unlikely now that Lily is looking for domestic work. Her cruel dismissal from Finton Hall might have put her off service for good, and where else would she go? The master and charity woman had already made their opinions plain, and I could think of nothing better. I walked nearly as far as Stepney in low spirits and would have carried on right up to the door of Francis’s parents if it wasn’t for the missus’ warning not to show myself to anyone. A dream woke me in the night, making me sit bolt upright. Something about Laurence moving the portrait of the little black child at Finton Hall and refusing to tell me where he was taking it. Sweating in the darkness, I remembered the painting is over a hundred years old. The silver circlet around the boy’s neck isn’t just a pretty part of his livery – it’s a slave collar. I believe the master enjoys hiding his wickedness in plain sight, just as in the portrait of the missus.

She has told me to visit no one, but I fear my letter to Francis’s parents will miscarry, and once we have left for Italy, I can do no more for him than I have for Lily. If we leave. The doubts come when my feet and fingers are stilled. I lie on the bed staring at cracks and stains in the ceiling. Italy feels unreal, a place in a dream, impossible. I imagine the missus has been found out by Laurence or changed her mind, that police will be sent to my door about Mr Garston. I think of Mary and the boot boy, and it hurts my stomach to know Francis and Edward are still there. Tomorrow, I—

Mrs Cole’s maid Betsy frightened me witless by knocking on my door. A message has arrived at last, unsigned.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, 3 p.m. Mrs B. St J.

Tuesday, 7th May

St James’ was Mrs B’s favourite church, the one she took us to most Sundays even though there were several nearer the house. ‘High church,’ she’d whisper and squint happily like a cat. It was a long walk. When the familiar tower came into view, I was surprised to feel a rush of grief. I kept my head down and shawl across my face.

It was empty except for a figure at the back moving about on some business. I sat down near the front at the far end of a pew to wait. A picture of Christ on the cross hung on the wall. It made me think of Gertrude at the vicarage and her good Christian words. Likely, she will never know the truth about the master. What will she think if it gets out I have gone with the missus? If we are caught? And Mrs Trevelyan, my parents, William? I may never see my family again. Fear made me sick suddenly. Taking Edward is breaking the law, a terrible crime. My eyes turned towards the painting, but I couldn’t look straight at His face, frightened of what I might see in its expression. The background to the cross showed Jerusalem in the distance, and I thought of the missus’ portrait and all the sinister things in it. Her face had looked expectant. Slowly, I brought my gaze to the foreground. This Christ stares down at his grieving Marys. His expression is sad, tired and helpless. Defeated. It seemed odd to me to have painted him that way. A cloth is draped over his hips, and it brought back a vision of my Mary in the library, undressed and helpless in the hands of that man. Anger returned, and I noticed suddenly the most obvious thing about the crucifixion. It had never crossed my mind before. You have to break some very important laws to get nailed to a cross.

‘I was unsure if you would come.’

I turned quickly. She was in the pew behind me over to the right, wearing a light blue cloak and a straw bonnet, which hid her face. He has made her dress as he wishes. At her throat was the pear-shaped choker.

‘Keep looking forward.’

I did as she said, feeling elated that she was near me and real after I’d spent so many days with my own thoughts.

‘Are you well?’

I smiled, though she couldn’t see it.

‘I am, ma’am. I hope you are?’

She gave one of her huff-laughs.

‘Much the better for seeing you. I have very little time. You haven’t changed your mind?’

I shook my head.

‘What do you want me to do?’

I heard the pew creak as she shifted in her seat, perhaps looking around to make sure we were alone.

‘I need you to be ready. When the time comes, we will need to move quickly. I’ll send pieces of sewing regularly – try to send them back without the delivery boy seeing you to be safe. You will know it’s time when I send a red petticoat.’

She carried on talking, low and fast. I learned that Lizzie had left, and a new nursemaid and lady’s maid had been appointed. They both treated the missus with distrust, no doubt fed stories by Barrett and Clockface. I listened so hard, I don’t think I even drew breath. When she finished, the empty church seemed to ring with her words as if she had shouted them.

‘Do you understand?’

I nodded. Except I didn’t, not everything.

‘Why do we have to wait? Why not choose a day?’

She paused.

‘There are things I have to do. It’s better if I don’t tell you everything. Will you be able to keep yourself?’

She sounded hesitant.

‘Do you need money?’

I heard in her voice how unschooled she is about the cost of things. Money is an unknown language to her. It sank an unpleasant feeling into the pit of my belly about the future.

‘No, thank you, ma’am. But when we get there …?’

It seemed bad luck even to mention it, but I knew I wouldn’t see her again until we were past the point of turning back.

‘I … I am sure I can keep us until I find an engagement.’

It was the first time, to my ears, she had sounded wholly unsure. If it comes to it, I can only suppose they need maids in houses over there as much as in London.

‘Mr Garston, ma’am?’

She paused again.

‘He has lost the sight in one eye.’

The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end. With the fear came a kind of awe that my own hands could have brought about such a calamity in another.

‘Are they looking for me?’

I heard her picking her words carefully.

‘Not publicly. Ralph told a story to the doctor about you being inebriated and hysterical.’

‘Won’t Mr Garston go to the police himself?’

‘He knows Ralph could destroy his life with one word – he will do as he is told. But you are not safe. Ralph is working to find out where you are. He has written to your parents – he told me that. He wants me to know he is in control still. I was worried you might have gone home.’

I felt a hand circling my throat and squeezing.

‘Written what?’

‘Oh, it will be all concern for your welfare after your unfortunate … loss of control, perhaps – he will have found a way to hint at Garston’s injuries. He – we – will be eager to know you are safe if you return home or write to them. He is sowing the seeds to undermine you.’

I was silent. The floor seemed to have fallen away from under me. The worst is I don’t know what my mother would believe if it comes to it.

‘I must go.’

Hearing her start to rise, I spoke quickly.

‘And Mary, ma’am?’

She sat down again.

‘Isabel is taking care of her at the vicarage. She will recover.’

Something not terrible at last.

‘Ma’am.’

I turned my head.

‘Is it very difficult … with him?’

There was a silence.

‘It isn’t for much longer.’

She rested her hand briefly on my shoulder.

‘God keep you, Harriet. Remember – a red petticoat.’

I’ve never heard her mention God’s name before except for that one time in the library when she caught me singing Milton’s poem and asked if I thought it was true – that they also serve Him who only stand and wait. My eyes turned to Christ on his cross again and the pain daubed into his mother’s face as she watches him suffer. I suppose it all depends on where you are standing and waiting.

I have burned the letters I wrote to Francis’s parents and written another. It gives no detail; it is a warning only to remove him from the house, that he is not safe there. I must trust it is enough. It may be weeks before the missus sends her sign – I won’t wait, nor will I leave it to the post. I must take the risk of delivering it myself.

Later

Francis’s family live in rooms above a corset-maker’s off the Mile End Road. The street is short but busy as nearly every house has a shop of some kind at the bottom with wares spilling onto the pavement. I edged past an old couple inspecting second-hand furniture and hesitated in the corset-maker’s doorway, clutching my letter and getting in the way of customers. My palms were damp with nerves and the clammy air – it was still drizzly but sticky this morning. The shouts of costermongers pummelled my ears, and the smouldering of a tinker’s coal pot caught in my throat. I held the edges of the envelope with the tips of my fingers so as not to mark it and wondered how to deliver it into their hands without showing myself. A messenger boy seemed safest, then I could watch from across the street. I looked around, searching for someone suitable, and saw a fruit seller over the road. His boy was crying out about slices of pineapple. Before I could move towards them, I felt a hand take hold of my elbow.

‘Are you looking for my husband, dear?’

I turned and knew her at once for Francis’s mother. She was spotlessly dressed in a dark red wool dress and straw bonnet and carried a basket heaving with packages. The troubling, almost-blood smell of fish drifted up. She looked down at the envelope in my hands, which clearly showed the name Bowman, and back to me. There was a directness in her expression as firm as the grip on my elbow. I imagine she keeps her household of men in the strictest order. But there was also a sparkle in her eye that was all Francis.

‘Yes, I … this is for you.’

I held it awkwardly towards her. She studied my face without hurry and seemed to find something in it – something not altogether welcome, I thought, but then a smile spread easily across her features.

‘You are Francis’s friend, Harriet.’

The urge to run seized me. I felt as exposed and raw as the fish, but she was laughing.

‘That is your handwriting?’

She nodded at the envelope and chuckled again at my scared expression. Instead of taking the letter though, she pushed me towards her door.

‘Come, my husband will be very pleased to meet you.’

She made a sort of humming noise over my excuses and laughed to herself some more. The stairs were steep, and she followed slowly behind me, each step an effort as if her joints ached. I ran back down to take her basket. At the top, she pointed into a tidy front parlour and called names into the back of the house.

‘Sit.’

She gestured to a chair in a corner. A wooden cross hung on the wall, and there were neat rows of pamphlets stacked on a sideboard. I was up again as soon as Francis’s father entered – a tall man, as neat as his wife, looking a little befuddled at the summons. Mrs Bowman introduced me as ‘Francis’s friend’, and her husband threw off the befuddled look at once and peered at me with the same intent look she had.

Another figure had come in behind him, a boy of about sixteen. Mrs Bowman handed him the basket and nodded. The boy glanced at me and left again – I heard him thundering down the stairs a moment later. Then they were all kindness, making me sit and thanking me for visiting. Mr Bowman pulled his chair a little nearer and leaned his forearms on his knees. His long hands hung loosely. They had the marks of physical work from some time past, and ink stains on the pads of his fingers. I felt comfortable with him, unashamed of my own hands. He enquired about my health and journey, where I had travelled from – I lied. Mrs Bowman drew back a little, near the window. Neither of them mentioned the envelope I still held in my hands. At the first break in his pleasantries, I held it out to him.

‘This is for you. I’m sorry for coming to your house, but I’m worried for Francis.’

He didn’t take the letter, and I was struck that neither of them showed any sign of surprise or alarm. Mr Bowman merely raised his eyebrows and spoke kindly.

‘It’s very kind of you to come all this way for Francis’s sake. We know you were a friend to him when he was alone and frightened in a new place.’

He stopped there without asking why I had come. His silence flustered me, and I answered the question I had been expecting.

‘Finton Hall is a terrible place. Mr Gethin isn’t the man everyone thinks he is, and some of the servants are just as bad.’

He listened thoughtfully, nodding, then smiled at me almost apologetically.

‘Francis writes that Mr Gethin is very kind to him.’

Mrs Bowman spoke from the window.

‘He is teaching him about art; Francis is allowed to study and learn from his collections.’

I stared helplessly into the man’s face.

‘Francis doesn’t know what is happening to the other servants.’

‘I see.’

He nodded again and looked at me more closely.

‘So, it is not Francis who is in trouble?’

I felt I was drowning.

‘No one is safe in that house, Mr Bowman. Mr Gethin …’

I stopped talking. Mrs Bowman had made the smallest movement. I caught it in the corner of my eye – a tiny jump of attention. She looked away from the window as I turned my head to her, but it brought me to my feet. I should have known from the beginning – the way she had looked at me in the doorway. They knew I was coming; they even knew what I was going to say. My words had been untoothed before I set out. Mr Bowman rose too.

‘Child, don’t be frightened.’

I couldn’t think in that moment what had happened. Francis must have told someone what I’d said to him – Laurence, of course – and the master or Barrett had written to these good people of the deranged servant coming their way telling terrible lies. The Bowmans’ soft voices and careful gentleness were all to keep the mad girl calmly in their parlour. Keep her for what? I snatched one of Mr Bowman’s hands and pressed the letter into it, speaking rapidly.

‘His valet and housekeeper find friendless children to employ, and then Gethin gives them to his friends – powerful men, Mr Bowman – to use as they wish. They hold parties. I know a girl …’

I faltered slightly.

‘She was abused, sir. And another I think is now on the streets. It’s always the young servants, sir. Francis is not safe.’

Mr Bowman’s kindly expression had dropped when I took hold of him. He was hearing me now, and I saw doubt – the beginnings of it – flicker in his eyes. Mrs Bowman had stepped closer, listening, and they exchanged a look. I yanked on Mr Bowman’s arm and shouted into his face.

‘Why will no one believe it?’

I sounded hysterical, but he didn’t flinch. He looked me full in the eye, a wondering dread spreading over his features, as if I was changing shape in front of him.

‘A policeman …’

Mrs Bowman had hurried to the window again. I don’t know if it was said in warning or relief. Mr Bowman was still staring at me, a thousand thoughts rising behind his eyes. He opened his mouth, but there was no time, and we both knew it. I looked desperately into his eyes one moment more and then ran for the stairs. He let me go.

My heart hammered so hard and fast it hurt. I was about to be caught. My diary was still in my pocket – the missus would be undone too. In the street, I saw a constable’s helmet bobbing behind a delivery cart coming from the Mile End Road. Francis’s brother came into sight beside him. A shout went up as I reached the other end of the street and rounded the corner.

It was a narrow lane of terraced houses, unswept. A child asleep in a doorway stuck his leg out as I ran by, nearly sending me headlong. Gleeful laughter followed me around the next corner into a wider street. A totter’s cart was just moving off from outside a tailor’s. As I reached it, the footsteps behind me were cut short; angry curses followed. I looked back to see the boy dart into the road in such a rush he knocked into a woman crossing with a child. I hopped onto the back of the cart. There were heaped sacks, broken things, old clothes bundled together. The smell of filth was overpowering. I buried myself amongst it all and pulled a stinking greatcoat over me. Through a rent in the material, I watched the policeman hobble into view and pick up pace when he saw the boy. They ran towards the cart, and I held my breath until they were past. Francis’s brother also appeared but stopped at the corner, looking both ways – he wasn’t interested in the policeman’s wounded pride. I hid myself completely, wishing the pony would go faster than its rickety plod, and was relieved after a few moments to feel it turn into a side street. The totter called out for people’s rags for what seemed half the length of London. Then we turned again, ambling down a new street before coming to a stop. I scrambled out, gulping for air, and surprised a man smoking in a doorway. He leaned over and slapped his knees in amusement as I scurried away.

I walked quickly, deeper into Stepney. My bearings were sound enough to know I was heading south towards the river and that seemed good enough. Anywhere the master’s web hadn’t reached. Invisible threads were spinning out towards me and everyone I knew, I could feel them, holding me fast, blocking up the eyes and ears of friends. Had I saved Francis? I don’t know. I wanted to break into a run, as if I hadn’t been overtaken already – false versions of myself racing through the world now, fleeter footed than I could ever be. Nowhere felt safe. I drifted west, keeping clear of the clamour of the docks. The river rose to meet me at London Bridge, and I crossed it. My path should have been north, but I didn’t want to return to my lodgings even if – as common sense told me – the master knew nothing of them yet. I carried on south and west. Perhaps some part of me did know where I was going. There was one friend the master didn’t know about. At least, I prayed so. Annie wouldn’t be told what to think anyway.

The first blood-thumping fright had left me by the time I reached Lambeth, and in its place came a weariness that dragged at my bones. Doubts came too when I finally found her street amongst the unending terraces, dredging her address from memory. She was married to a policeman. Andrew’s division was far from Stepney, and the missus said the police hadn’t been told of Mr Garston’s injury, but when a washer-woman pointed me to number twelve, I lingered on the pavement as I had outside the Bowmans’. In the end, I was too tired to argue with myself and knocked. No one came. Somehow that was the last thing I expected, and I sat down on the step to lean against the doorjamb and close my eyes.

‘Har!’

I started out of my doze like a gun had gone off. Even now I don’t know how long I had been slumped there for every neighbour and passer-by to see. The woman in front of me was wearing a plain, shabby dress with a dirty shawl draped over her head. It was so unlike Annie, I could only stare at her, blinking, until she flung off the shawl and pulled me to my feet for a hug. We peered into each other’s faces.

‘Har, what are you doing here? Have you come to see me?’

I nodded. Why else would I be in Lambeth at her door? She rapped my forehead with a knuckle.

‘Well, you’re at the wrong house. We’re number twenty-one.’

I looked groggily around at the door behind me.

‘Are you back in London now?’

‘I …’

I realised with a shock that I had a story for Helen Dubois, but nothing for Harriet Watkins. All I had decided was that Annie must know nothing of my plans with the missus.

‘I’m … taking a short holiday – with a bit of sewing on the side – and then I’ll go home.’

Her face lit up.

‘To marry William?’

‘Oh … no.’

I had brushed over that point in my letter.

‘I broke it off.’

Her face became very intent, and then a wicked smile spread over it.

‘Even better. Come on, let’s go home and talk.’

I let myself be swept along, feeling the sweet comfort of a good friend’s arm in mine. Annie was full of chatter about nothing very much. She wasn’t really interested in why I had left Finton Hall, too busy watching passers-by on the street while pretending not to, like an expert pickpocket – or policeman, as I found out. In her parlour, she threw clothes and bits of sewing off a chair to make space for me and skipped off to make tea. I picked a postcard from the floor of Margate where she had said they honeymooned and placed it on the crammed and dusty mantelshelf.

Over tea, she told me she had been posing as a desperate unmarried mother hoping to send her baby out for adoption. Her clothes were a costume. The woman she had been visiting was suspected of taking in nurse children without being registered.

‘Guilty as sin.’

She grinned and swirled her tea.

‘She’s expecting me back tomorrow morning with the baby and ten bloody quid. But she’ll find a detective at her door instead.’

She hooted. I must have looked as confused as I felt.

‘Andrew’s friend, Robert – you met him, remember, the one who’s sergeant now’ – she winked – ‘he’s taken it on himself to rid the world of murderous baby farmers, the kind that promise to foster children or find new parents for them, but put an end to the poor things instead and pocket the money. It happens more often than you’d think. I told you in my letter.’

‘But why are you …’

‘Well, there aren’t any police women, are there, more’s the pity.’

She shook her head.

‘So, it comes down to the wives of policemen to do their dirty work for them, like everything else. And it had to be me because Detective Sergeant Robert doesn’t have a wife …’

She leaned forward with that wicked smile.

‘Which is why I think it’s a particular stroke of good fortune that you turn up today, not Mrs William.’

I fell back in my chair.

‘Annie!’

‘What? He liked you, remember? Why don’t you come and …’

‘No! That’s not what I’m here for.’

She pulled a face.

‘What are you here for? Where are you staying?’

‘Just … a room.’

I clutched at a lie, an area I’d passed through on the way.

‘In Aldgate.’

‘Don’t sound like much of a holiday.’

‘It’s not really.’

I was floundering. Annie frowned at me.

‘Are you well, Har? You look tired and …’

I nodded quickly.

‘Too much walking. I felt like seeing London again, that’s all, and thought I’d look around for a new position. I’ll go home in a bit when the needlework runs out.’

‘Well, thanks for telling us you were coming. Your last letter had less to say than that chair you’re sat in. Too grand for us since you were made lady’s maid?’

I picked up a bit of buttered bread and threw it in her face. Annie always loved a fight – best way to distract her. She pressed her lips together and lifted the teapot as if she might chuck it. Laughter spilled from both of us.

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘Visit properly when I don’t have washing to do. Sunday.’

‘I will, but just you and Andrew.’

‘Have it your way. You’re a strange one, Harriet Watkins.’

I walked home even though I was tired and it had started to drizzle, glowing from spending a simple hour in a friend’s company. It’s taken some of the terror of Stepney off. I still shiver, thinking of what might have happened. The master’s name is weighty enough for the constable to have held me until word could be sent to Gloucester Square. Then all would have been lost. As it is, he knows now I’m in London, that I haven’t gone quietly away. I can feel the web all around me, finding me out.

Sunday, 12th May

Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away from Annie this morning. Not after the last three days. I think I was already starting to sicken on Wednesday night. On Thursday, I woke with a head buzzing like a beehive, and a throat like I’d swallowed half the bees. Walking home in the rain must have done it. I got no work done and kept to my bed, relying on Betsy to fetch me broth. Three days with nothing to do but worry. By the time I could get myself out of bed, I needed a friend even more than on Wednesday. I had a powerful urge to spill everything out. The old Annie would have taken it to her grave, probably. But she’s gone and married a bloody policeman.

‘Christ, you’re white as a sheet.’

She pulled me into the parlour and hollered to Andrew. I took in the room, clean and tidy for guests this time with dusted ornaments and a spread of food on a sideboard. She fussed about with shawls and blankets for me and then cutlery and napkins. At Mrs B’s she had clattered around the kitchen and thrown dishes of food about like a clumsy, bad-tempered bear. It was lucky Mrs B’s eyesight hadn’t been good enough to notice the ironing.

‘What are you grinning about?’

‘You. And your starched doilies.’

She looked both cross and sheepish at the same time, which made me laugh out loud. Her face recovered itself, and she tapped my head with her fingers.

‘You’re still in there then. You looked like a hounded rabbit on Tuesday and one caught in a snare today.’

She offered me devilled eggs and searching looks.

‘What did they do to you in Hertfordshire?’

I was ready with Harriet Watkins today.

‘It was a bad place in the end. Mean.’

She nodded knowingly. I shrugged.

‘And I have a fancy to see somewhere else. Scotland maybe, or France.’

‘France? Harriet’s going to France!’

She said it to Andrew, who walked in looking freshly scrubbed. Happy.

‘Is she?’

Happy and uninterested. Marriage suits him as well as it does Annie. Being master in his own house has dulled the world outside for him.

We had a sort of picnic in front of the fire despite the warmer weather. It was the most comfortable I’ve been since before Finton Hall, except for Annie’s questions. Every lie hurt. I watched them, secretly wondering at their unthinking confidence in the next day and what it would hold. As if it was more normal to live life on a knife’s edge. They spoke of his work, visits to family, neighbours’ gossip, and I had to push away thoughts of what might have been. Even more so when Andrew said something coy about extra mouths to feed and Annie looked at me with a soft expression and rubbed a hand over her middle. I put down my plate and pushed away blankets so I could get up and hug her – praying to God she hadn’t seen the truth in my face. Her news shouldn’t have come as a shock; it shouldn’t have stabbed me in the heart so hard I felt sick.

We made a happy group from the outside, laughing about the hours in Mrs B’s kitchen, chatting about the future. Annie kept looking at the clock, I noticed, and when I said I should get back, she launched into another story about Gloucester Square. It was twenty minutes before there was space enough in her flurry of words to plonk down my cup and saucer like a full stop. Someone knocked at the door.

She leapt up.

‘I’ll get that.’

I looked at Andrew. He knitted his brows and looked at his empty plate.

‘Robert’s here, Andy.’

Annie drew the sergeant into the room, avoiding my glare. I remembered him very well. Lively grey eyes that you don’t notice at first because of the birthmark – a dull red island on his right cheek that draws the eye all around its bays and spits until you feel him looking at you. Andrew rose to shake his hand. They met as people do who see each other often but are always glad.

‘You remember my friend, Harriet, don’t you?’

Annie was shrill with treachery. Robert looked at me. I nodded quickly.

‘Hello.’

No smile – he looks first and looks hard. He made me nervous when he visited Gloucester Square – I think because he’s with the detective lot rather than an ordinary bobby like Andrew. He’s got a proper schooling and a soft voice.

‘Hello. I’m interrupting.’

‘I was about to leave.’

Annie piped over us insisting on tea, and we both said we had to be going, which threw me into a panic about leaving at the same time. Robert said he just needed a moment with them. Andrew dragged a chair across.

‘Have something to eat first. How’s your housekeeper? Still laid up?’

Robert looked at the meat pie.

‘She is.’

‘Your housekeeper’s ill?’

Annie sounded too concerned. Robert scratched his chin.

‘She’s broken her arm.’

‘Oh! How are you managing? Do you need anything doing for you?’

Anyone would think it was both his arms broken.

‘Harriet is the best seamstress in London.’

My back went cold.

‘She does fine work for the gentry. Darns faster than I can snag my stockings, and look at that detail.’

She reached out to touch the stitching on my collar. I flinched.

‘Annie …’

‘You said you were looking for more work while you’re in London.’

We stared at each other. I hadn’t.

‘I do have trousers that need a few stitches. I need a new set of shirts, for that matter.’

Robert spoke into the silence. He gave the first hint of a smile.

‘Settled!’

Annie clapped her hands together. I was forced to smile back. At least, my lips made a shape.

‘Give him your address.’

Robert immediately took out a small book and pencil from his pocket. Snared rabbit was about right – I felt the wire tightening.

‘I’ll come for it. My landlady doesn’t allow …’

Everyone waited for me to finish.

‘She doesn’t allow deliveries?’

His eyes were like lead shot.

‘I’m … She gets annoyed with all the parcels. I pick up work myself now.’

I pushed my nails into my palms. Annie tutted.

‘Strange woman. You should move. Come closer to us.’

She spoke cheerfully, but I’d made the room feel odd. Robert looked at me a moment longer, then wrote in his book and neatly tore out the page. He offered it to me.

‘It’s not far from here.’

‘Not far?’

Annie threw her hands in the air.

‘It’s three steps around the corner; you might as well take it home with you now. You can wait five minutes for him to have a mouthful, can’t you?’

So we sat down again. Robert brought out an envelope and handed it to Annie. He glanced at me.

‘Everything’s in there.’

She turned to place it on a dresser, winking at me as she did so. Another baby farmer appointment. Robert ate a plateful, and the three of them spoke about the reorganising of the detective department. I listened and looked interested and heard nothing. The sergeant’s eyes kept turning towards me, watchful. Then that was over, and it was time to leave. Annie hugged me and whispered a false ‘sorry’ in my ear.

Outside, Robert smiled with the clear half of his face, as if the other half wasn’t interested, and gestured down the street.

‘It’s …’

We started walking, and I felt tiredness cloak me. The illness had been short, but I should have been in bed. I felt his attention on me and heard him take in a breath. More questions were unbearable.

‘Is it usual for you to work on a Sunday?’

It came out so sharp, there was an awkward pause. I realised it sounded like a rebuke and felt a wild laugh bubbling up. To cover it, I put a hand over my mouth.

‘Quite often, yes.’

I was grateful at least not to get a lecture about criminals not resting on the Lord’s day. He was about to say something else, so I cut in again.

‘You’re a sergeant now?’

‘Yes. Detective sergeant.’

Another awkward pause and then my too-late-remembered congratulations.

‘You’re the darling of Scotland Yard, Annie says.’

I sounded sarcastic, but he laughed.

‘Annie should be running the place with her instincts. I wish I could use them both full time – Andrew is like a terrier when he’s onto something.’

There was a silence.

‘Annie told me you were lady’s maid at your last place.’

Bloody Annie.

‘Yes.’

‘Mr Gethin’s house, wasn’t it?’

I looked straight ahead, unspeaking. He continued.

‘I hope when the Liberals are back in, they put him in the cabinet. We could use more men like him.’

I couldn’t have said anything to that if I’d tried. Robert waited a moment and then carried on.

‘I keep an eye on politicians, you see. In the force we can bring criminals to justice and the rest, but it’s the politicians who change the game. If the law doesn’t adapt to what’s happening down here’ – he pointed at the pavement – ‘we’re just going to go on uncovering the same old crimes and not be able to do anything about it.’

He spoke with warmth, losing the watchfulness. Probably bored of trying to get anything out of this odd friend of Annie’s. I made an effort.

‘I hadn’t thought of it like that. I thought the law was the law, and then there were people who broke it.’

‘It’s a dance between law and crime. My work should have been helped by an Act passed in seventy-two, but it doesn’t come close to dealing with the problem. I have to prove the scale of it, the numbers of infants involved – I don’t know if you’ve read about the bodies in the Thames – so the people at the top can’t pretend any longer it isn’t happening. That’s half the trouble – people don’t like to admit what’s going on. They look the other way.’

‘You should be an MP yourself.’

He laughed.

‘I don’t think they’d have me. I wouldn’t want it anyway – I like it down here where I’m free to get my hands dirty. And be invisible if the work calls for it. I don’t want to be well known.’

He tapped his birthmark.

‘This already makes me stand out too much.’

‘Invisible?’

‘Sometimes. We have to fade into the background to see what’s going on. Pretend to be something we’re not to get at the truth. It’s part of the job. But there’s little point to it if the people in charge don’t listen.’

‘And you think Mr Gethin would listen?’

Robert lifted his hands briefly as if they were holding a tray of delights.

‘He wasn’t born into his position, he knows what it is to adapt, and he often speaks for reform – he’s willing to look at what’s in front of him. He’s popular too – he spoke in favour of going to war, but he’s willing to support outsider causes like the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act. They say he personally involved himself in improving the safety of his miners. I hear he employs injured miners as well as abandoned children on his domestic staff?’

I thought of the flint mill and didn’t trust myself to speak. It wasn’t their safety that interested him, Detective Sergeant. My chest had tightened and that now familiar burn of anger threatened to break into flame. So, the master is a saint in the eyes of the world, not just the vicarage kitchen – he even champions women’s causes. I thought of the missus with that choker around her neck. The world will not forgive her. Or me, lying to my friends and the police. For the first time, I welcomed it, the anger. I could feel it pushing aside the doubts and showing me where my path lay. It was stronger even than the fear. I nursed it in silence.

‘Was it a good place – working for Mr Gethin?’

Poor Robert. What an awkward companion I made. He must have been wishing Annie had minded her own business as much as I did.

‘He was hardly there. I didn’t see him much.’

It would have been obvious to anyone, never mind a detective, that I was holding something back. I felt him look at me, that watchfulness again, but he left it alone. The rest of our talk was of shirts and patterns and material. I waited in the hallway of the building where he has his rooms, weathering the lingering stare of a passing neighbour – mutton chops and wet lips. I stared back with as much contempt as I could muster. He wasn’t used to that and looked away. Robert turned up again with the items of mending and an old shirt to copy bundled up very neatly and tied with cord. He wanted to pay for a cab.

‘I’d rather walk and take an omnibus. But thank you.’

His eyes were serious. I could see him looking for a way to insist, so with a nod, I headed for the door.

‘Don’t you mind it? Going about by yourself?’

His voice told me he didn’t approve. I stopped at the door.

‘I like it.’

I was going to say more, but then thought I don’t have to explain myself to him or anyone else. Walking quickly down the street, I felt the cloak of tiredness lift a bit. Somehow, I’d avoided giving my address to a policeman (and Annie for that matter) and was getting a few bob off him too.

Wednesday, 15th May

A bundle of sewing arrived from the missus. I opened it with heart thumping. Her green silk gown, very fine, with a request for a balayeuse to be added to the train – the slip of paper pinned to it said ‘not urgent’. Wrapped up in it were lengths of cotton. ‘Servant’s dress – urgent’. The time must be getting close. Robert’s shirts aren’t finished yet though I’ve been busy with them since Monday – I went out and bought the fabric first thing that morning. I don’t want to attract attention by disappearing with them not done. But the dress has to be ready in time. She even put in some plain handkerchiefs with instructions to embroider the initials of her new name in the corners. It seems a bit much, but perhaps she is right. Details could save us or be our undoing.

Friday, 17th May

I found a half sovereign in the pocket of Robert’s trousers – I wonder if it is a test. Not left the house. All I do is cut and sew. I have barely slept. The stitches are like laying train tracks – all the time I feel a thundering engine bearing down on me and I can’t get them in fast enough. The dress is done.

Sunday, 19th May

I finished Robert’s sewing this morning and borrowed the iron to get everything as pristine as possible. A cab would have made the journey easier with keeping the shirts unrumpled, but I didn’t dare spend the money. All I could think about was dropping them off at Annie’s, having a cup of tea and coming back home to my bed. She greeted me as warmly as before and without a hint of shame – even when she ushered me into the parlour and there was Robert, sitting awkwardly on the edge of his chair in his shirt and waistcoat. He stood up and gave me that half smile. I dumped his clothes on the table with a lot less care than I had shown them on the jolting and crowded omnibuses. Annie was relentless.

‘Try them on in the other room, Robert – see if they need any alterations while Harriet’s here.’

I think he saw my face.

‘I’m sure they’re perfect.’

‘Well, sit down, sit down, have some tea.’

The idea of turning around and trudging all the way back again without even resting my bones forced me into the nearest chair.

‘Where’s Andrew?’

‘On his beat.’

She poured drinks and then said something about a piece of washing that she had to see to in the yard and disappeared. I don’t know if she expected us to fall into each other’s arms. After last week, I didn’t believe Robert was there to court me. It put me on edge that he was there at all. His lead-shot eyes were aimed at me, but he didn’t seem about to speak. I ran my eyes over the ornaments and postcards on the mantelshelf.

‘What you said before – about law and crime being a dance.’

I glanced at him. He looked slightly startled.

‘Yes?’

‘What if a law makes people criminal, so they don’t have a choice. If a law is wrong …’

‘I didn’t say laws are wrong. Only that they need to keep in step with what’s going on for justice to be done.’

He eyed me.

‘There will always be criminals who bend current laws to their advantage. They are still criminals.’

‘What about …’

I don’t know what I thought I was doing. Perhaps it was the long journey or having no one to talk to except myself all week but seeing him again seemed to take the lid off a pot I hadn’t known was boiling. I should have been able to tell everything to this detective, offer up every damning detail that I had witnessed at Finton Hall and be heard. The missus should have seen the master hauled in front of a court of law. Instead, we were running like fugitives, while this policeman sipped tea and spoke of justice. I thought of the missus stealing her own child away, and Helene, raped and forced onto the street. The French maid had become a real presence for me after what happened in the library. Her handwriting was etched into my memory, all those words offering up the truth to the missus. I had become an echo of her, living alone in London with a clouded future as she had done before her baby came. The course of her life decided by the same men who had forced mine. I’d even taken a version of her name. But I couldn’t speak – I couldn’t say any of that to this grey-eyed man of the law.

‘What if … what if someone can’t afford to eat because they can’t find work, and you saw them take a bit of bread without paying for it? I saw that only today coming down Gray’s Inn Road on the omnibus – a man took a loaf from a baker’s van. What if he had children to feed?’

Every nerve told me to stop my mouth, but it shot open again.

‘Or the women who have to give up their babies to these baby farmers you’re going after. What choice do they have if they can’t get work with a bastard child in tow?’

He was still looking startled.

‘It’s not our job to arrest innocent mothers.’

‘They are still being punished though, aren’t they? No one thinks they are innocent really. There’s no law good enough to protect them or their children – you said so yourself.’

‘Not …’

His eyebrows went higher.

‘At least … there are several more societies now that help women and girls … I know Mr Gethin is a patron of—’

I made a sound like a cow in labour. He stopped and looked at me intently. I noticed the grey of his eyes could be stony or, as it was then, deep and dark as velvet.

‘Do you know someone who needs help?’

Detective Devious. I ignored the question.

‘Don’t you ever feel guilty about sneaking around and spying on people?’

‘No. Not when a common good comes out of it. It’s never without good reason.’

He was so ready with his answer, I thought he must have been asked the same thing many times before.

‘It’s just a matter of paying attention.’

‘Pretending to be something you’re not is more than paying attention.’

‘We have to be able to see, so we can give evidence.’

He sounded impatient for the first time.

‘Most people make terrible eye-witnesses – they don’t remember or understand what they’ve seen. Their account can easily be taken apart in the witness box by a good lawyer. It’s difficult enough for a trained policeman to sound credible.’

He paused and then continued, as if it was part of the same thought.

‘Annie’s worried about you.’

I gave him what must have been a sullen look.

‘It’s time I went home.’

He stood up at the same time.

‘I’m not your enemy, Harriet.’

‘Who said you was?’

‘You’re angry at the police.’

‘No.’

‘You think because we have a job to do, we can’t see the difference between a hardened criminal and someone swiping scraps to feed their family.’

‘I don’t know anything about it. Say goodbye to Annie for me.’

I was almost at the door when I remembered. It slapped me in the face and spun me on my heel.

‘Your bloody half sovereign.’

I glared at him.

‘You did that on purpose, didn’t you? To see if I’d take it?’

‘What?’

‘It’s on my windowsill. I’ll send it here.’

He ran after me – went every bit as far as overtaking me on the street. I tried to walk around him, but he stood in the way.

‘I promise you I didn’t plant it.’

I looked up and was amazed to see laughter jumping around his face. His birthmark crinkled at the edges near his mouth.

‘It was a mistake. I had forgotten about it too. I’m always losing my own things.’

He lifted his hands in the same manner as he had the week before and shrugged.

‘I’m a detective sergeant who struggles to find his own socks sometimes. It’s embarrassing.’

The charm was unsettling. I looked at him as at a magpie that had suddenly burst into song.

‘Believe me, I have enough to do without laying traps for Annie’s friends. But listen, I’ll be near Aldgate on Friday.’

I immediately shook my head, but he raised a hand.

‘I won’t bother your landlady. Why don’t you meet me at the Fenchurch Street tearooms and give it back to me there? Or even better, use it to buy us both a slice of cake?’

He smiled. Both sides of his face. I stared at him ’til I realised my mouth was hanging open – to think Annie might have been right after all. I agreed to meet him to give him his money back. After that I’ll keep away from Lambeth and write to Annie that I’ve gone home – I’ll be in Italy before she learns otherwise. It pulls at my heart something dreadful to lie.

Wednesday, 22nd May

The missus has sent me the choker, wrapped up in a short cape to go with the green dress. I hadn’t seen it so close up before. The pendant is heavy and sparkles – with ill wishes, I fancy. She sent no instructions. It seems a strange thing to want to keep. I didn’t want to look at it and sewed it into my own petticoat.

I have written to Mother to say I am going abroad with a new family and will write again from France (in case she writes to tell the master). It is in the other direction from Italy, I believe. I didn’t put my London address, of course, and said nothing about leaving Finton Hall. Harriet Watkins is being swept away. Soon she will be less real than Helen Dubois.

Friday, 24th May

I made sure I was early so Robert wouldn’t see the direction I came from. The tearooms looked intimidating – dark and thronging inside. I waited outside for more than half an hour, watching the traffic and passers-by and feeling the heat pricking under my arms. There was a thin, yellow haze over the city today – the sun and clouds seemed caught in it, their edges fuzzed as if they were being eaten away. People look at you more if you’re standing still. I felt a sitting duck for stares – from men mostly. They took aim, so to speak, and then lowered their eyes like gun barrels. Not worth the shot. A young man rushing by in a butcher’s apron winked at me. I started walking up and down, trying to be invisible – I envy Robert that – pretending interest in a tobacconist’s window. That was where he found me.

‘Do you smoke?’

He was wearing a blindingly white necktie and looked fresh from the barbers.

‘I tried a pipe once. It was like breathing in dirty wool.’

William had chased me about the paddock with it, trying to put it in my mouth. Robert nodded.

‘I agree. I prefer cigarettes.’

We stood in silence a moment, which felt more awkward than usual in the midst of the street’s bustle. Then I remembered what we were there for.

‘Here.’

I’d wrapped the money in a spare piece of material from his shirts. He took it and rubbed it between his fingers as if it might magic a genie.

‘Thank you. You’ll let me buy you some tea by way of an apology for Sunday?’

‘An apology?’

‘I was ill mannered. Bad policeman’s habit of asking too many questions.’

I looked at him and realised that I wanted to. A few moments of cake and his company. It seemed easier to say yes. I added that I couldn’t stay long. The air was close and sticky in the tearoom. Robert bought us tea and slices of sponge cake, and we sat at a table near a window, although the daylight seemed reluctant to venture in even that far.

‘I’m sorry it’s not a prettier place. I don’t know this part of the city very well.’

‘I don’t mind it.’

‘You must be familiar with the area, staying here?’

I felt the air pressing even closer.

‘Not very. A little.’

I was looking out of the window but turned before he could ask anything further.

‘Why are you here?’

To my surprise, he answered frankly.

‘There’s a network of baby farmers in Lambeth passing children between them and I think there’s a woman near London Bridge involved too. An inspector here is helping.’

‘What do they do to the children?’

‘It varies. Some are neglected. Some are deliberately harmed.’

‘You mean murdered?’

His eyes turned stony. He didn’t like the question.

‘It’s not a pleasant subject …’

‘I don’t mind. I’d rather know what’s going on than walk around with my eyes shut.’

He studied me for a few seconds.

‘Yes. Another body was found this end of the river. I believe far more infants are being murdered than anyone is willing to admit. The worst offenders move often and change their names, but I think I’m getting close to one.’

An uneasy feeling billowed in my stomach. Changing names and moving around was what criminals did, murderers. Robert was no longer looking at me though, caught up in his own thoughts.

‘What … astonishes me, is how convincing they are as loving and affectionate mothers. Not just to the women wanting to adopt out their babies, but to people in their own household. I interviewed a seven-year-old girl last year who loved her foster mother as dearly as you could wish – she felt loved. The same woman had let at least two babies starve to death in the same room.’

‘Why had the girl survived?’

‘Probably as a front to make the nurse look legitimate. If a child’s death comes to light, it seems less suspicious when there are healthy, surviving children.’

I thought painfully of Francis. The master must mean to keep him as a front, overwhelming him with kindness, like the missus said, before trapping him as he had Laurence. A fierce gladness seized my heart that we would be raising Edward far from Finton Hall. I shook my head.

‘Clever.’

‘Sorry?’

‘To make yourself look respectable – likable even – and no one will be able to believe … No, worse than that – no one will want to believe what you’re capable of.’

I looked at him properly for the first time, seeing him for himself rather than worrying about how he was seeing me.

‘As a detective, you must have to be suspicious of everyone you meet. Even if you like them.’

‘Well …’

He gave a laugh.

‘When investigating.’

‘In a way, you must have to be as callous as the criminals.’

The startled look came back.

‘We have to look at every possibility.’

He stared at me a moment and then leaned forward slightly.

‘I shouldn’t have said anything. Most people are as good as they seem. They aren’t hiding terrible secrets.’

‘How do you know?’

His eyes seemed to flicker between stone and velvet. I think he was both annoyed and curious. For my part, I was enraged again. I don’t know if it was him, or the thought of the master still, believed by all to be a saint. The slightest touch and fury boils up as quick as silt kicked up from a riverbed. I took a breath and looked out of the window again. The stuffy air and sweetness of the cake were making me feel sick. I glanced at him.

‘Sorry.’

He shook his head.

‘It’s a miserable subject. Perhaps we should think of better examples. Are your mother and father …?’

I hooted a laugh before he could finish his question and spoke without thinking.

‘My mother would gladly drown me in a washtub.’

He didn’t smile, which I don’t blame him for.

‘Why?’

‘Because I didn’t go home and marry a person.’

His eyes turned to slate, and I looked down, suddenly self-conscious. When he spoke, he chose a light-hearted tone.

‘I think my mother wishes she had left me on the steps of a church.’

I looked sideways at him. He pointed to his cheek.

‘She never reconciled herself to this. She thinks the stain goes right through. My untainted brother gets all her affection.’

He was smiling, but still, I wasn’t sure what to say.

‘We haven’t come up with very good examples.’

‘True.’

He laughed.

‘At least we know Annie will be an excellent mother.’

I thought about it. Yes. Fierce and demanding, probably, but she will cloak them in love.

‘Was she angry that I left so sudden on Sunday?’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘No. She was … concerned.’

I lifted my own eyebrows in return. A smile flickered around his eyes, and we laughed at the same time.

‘I expect she blamed you.’

‘I expect I deserved it.’

We held each other’s gaze. His eyes had turned a lighter grey, and he was looking at me with all the interest the master had – only, as if I was a person rather than a curiosity to be trapped in a box. In spite of myself, I didn’t want to look away. It was only a moment, but in it I imagined what it might be like to see him differently, not as a stranger but as a man I had something to do with. I remembered how Mary had kissed Laurence, the way she had embraced him, and felt my face grow warm.

Robert’s hands were resting on the table, the fingers loosely interlaced. They were like a gentleman’s hands – like the master’s – smooth and unblemished. Aware I was staring, I looked down at mine and saw the thickened skin, the trace of ingrained black down the side of one thumbnail. They called me back to myself like a slap. I saw what should have been obvious from the first. Detective Sergeant Robert Ansell is ten years older than me, educated, ambitious. Meeting him at Annie’s had cheated the distance between us. The interest he was showing in me, an unemployed maid, wasn’t natural.

‘She thinks a lot of you.’

I put my hands under the table.

‘We got close at our old place. It was just the two of us and the mistress had some funny ways – but it was a good time.’

‘Not like at Finton Hall.’

He knew the name of Mr Gethin’s house. I ran my hands over my skirt. They were clammy.

‘Annie said you called it a mean place to work.’

I tried to keep my voice light.

‘Yes, but also I want to see somewhere new.’

‘I’m curious. It’s strange that a man who looks after his workers so well would be master of an unhappy house.’

I didn’t respond.

‘But you said he was seldom there. Was it Mrs Gethin? I saw her once last year in the gallery when he was speaking in the Commons. She—’

‘He killed the canary.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Snapped its neck in front of us.’

There was a pause.

‘Ralph Gethin …?’

‘Thank you for the tea. I should go.’

I stood up. The room was still filled with people, all with their backs to me. I pushed between them, knocking a shoulder and then an elbow that sent something smashing to the floor. On the street, I walked quickly, glad of the crowd to weave through, skirting shoeblacks and barrow boys before pausing at a corner to look back. I caught a glimpse of him outside the tearooms, a stranger again, looking in the other direction, and hurried down the side street.

Winding a way back to the main road, I jumped on the first omnibus going west. At Charing Cross I changed again. I don’t know what had made me blurt out about the canary, as if that was the worst of it. Perhaps because it’s the one nasty thing I’ve seen the master do with his own hands. A lady opposite kept looking at me in a concerned way which made me want to cry. I kept my head down until it was time to get off again and walked as fast as I could back to my lodgings.

Betsy was in the hall when I got in. It was unusual to see her standing still – almost as if she’d been waiting for me.

‘Evening, miss. Another parcel for you.’

She held out a package that was wrapped as the missus’ sewing always was.

‘Thank you, Betsy.’

She nodded and didn’t move. At the bottom of the stairs, I looked back. She dropped her eyes and ducked away down the kitchen stairs.

In my room, I threw the parcel on the bed and myself beside it and waited for the tears that had been bubbling the whole way back – opened the door to them. But in their place a weary impatience loomed. It made me sit up again, hunch-shouldered and dry-eyed, staring at the floor. I have sentenced myself to this. There is no comfort to be had in crying. I turned my eyes to the parcel. It was lighter than the others. I drew it to me and held it in my lap a moment before tearing it open. A red petticoat. I held it up and a large key dropped to the floor. The slip of paper gave a street address near the law courts, of all places, and today’s date. Then ‘TONIGHT’ in capitals, as if the date wasn’t enough. My heart seemed to grow louder with every beat like approaching footsteps. There was a bang on the door, twice.

I leapt up and tried to think two hundred things at once. Ripping the paper from the pin, I threw the petticoat under the bed and tore the note across twice, throwing the bits in the fireplace. I snatched the key from the floor and slipped it into my pocket. The rapping came again.

‘Miss Doobah …’

Mrs Cole.

I set my face and opened the door to her. She had prepared a face of her own – righteousness rubbed with vinegar.

‘I have told you I don’t allow gentlemen callers.’

‘I know, Mrs Cole. I haven’t had any.’

Her eyebrows drew themselves up. I imagined twin archers readying to loose their arrows.

‘Then why was there one here this morning? I turned a blind eye last time, but I will tolerate it no further.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I made the rules very clear when you arrived.’

The word ‘TONIGHT’ was still banging against my chest. I concentrated hard on a blemish on Mrs Cole’s forehead.

‘Someone called for me?’

It sank in.

‘For Helen?’

‘And not for the first time, as I said. Betsy even let him in.’

We stared at each other. I began closing the door.

‘I’ve very sorry, Mrs Cole, it won’t happen again.’

‘Mind that it doesn’t. I won’t have my house talked about …’

The rest of her words were shut out, although they continued a while. I kept my hand on the doorknob until she retreated down the passage. Turning, I took two steps towards my box, then halted and went for the carpet bag on the chair instead. I stopped short of that too and finally headed back to the door and hurried downstairs to the kitchen. Betsy was on her own, preparing a chop for someone’s dinner. She started when she saw me.

‘Mrs Cole says a man called for me today, Betsy?’

She dropped the chop into a pan on the range. It sizzled fiercely and spat fat. Some must have hit her arm because she jumped again and rubbed it.

‘Betsy?’

‘That’s right, miss.’

‘Why didn’t you say when I came in?’

‘I forgot, miss, sorry.’

I watched her for a moment.

‘What was his name?’

‘Oh, he didn’t say, miss.’

She looked relieved – no doubt a question she could answer honestly.

‘Well, what did he want then?’

‘He didn’t say, miss.’

She turned to the pan, putting her back to me. I marched around the table and pushed the chop to the side so it wouldn’t burn. Betsy backed off, wild eyes and fidgety fingers. I tried to sound kind. I tried not to knock off her cap and drag her by the hair into the yard.

‘Betsy, Mrs Cole says she’s seen him before and that you let him in.’

The grimace came back, except this time it creased up her whole face. It stayed fixed that way, turned up to mine like a child’s before a flood of tears. I put my hands out to her.

‘Betsy, you have to tell me.’

I had to reach down to take her arms that were hanging by her sides. They were solid muscle from all the work. Finally, her face quivered into tears. She took a breath.

‘I’m sorry, miss, please don’t tell them, please don’t.’

I pulled her over to a chair and sat down next to her, holding her hands.

‘Tell who?’

‘The police.’

She whispered it. Something horrible ran up my spine. By degrees, I got it out of her, though it wasn’t easy making sense of her words through the sobbing.

‘There was a man, miss. He said he was your friend and there was a letter coming for you, but that you mustn’t see it. For your own good. He seemed ever so kind, miss.’

‘A letter, Betsy?’

She nodded miserably.

‘I was to put a dried posy in the window when it came, so he’d know.’

‘And then?’

‘And then …’

Her voice rose to a distressed squeak.

‘And then when he called, I was to put the letter on the hall table and pretend to see if you was home, and that way, it would be his fault for taking it and not mine for giving it him, and I couldn’t get in trouble with the police that way, he said.’

She turned terrified eyes on me.

‘He said he was your friend and it was for your own good and he had to do it.’

Her nose was running. I asked if he had offered her money, and she burst out crying afresh. I didn’t trouble asking again. There was a cloth draped over a cupboard door. I reached for it, offering her the cleanest corner. She blew her nose and looked at me pleadingly, her eyes still welling over.

‘I wasn’t going to do it though, miss, I swear. The letter came on Wednesday and I told myself I wouldn’t, but then I thought, what if he’s right and I’d be doing you wrong by not doing what he said, and then I saw him coming past to look every day, and I’d already said I would so I knew I’d be in trouble with him, and I put the posy out last night.’

It was difficult to stop her once she’d started. I took hold of her hands again.

‘What did he look like, Betsy?’

Her eyes went wide as if the question was unanswerable.

‘How tall was he?’

She raised her gaze and looked uncertainly at the top shelf above the sideboard. About seven feet up.

‘He couldn’t have been that tall, Betsy.’

‘Well, he was taller than me.’

I remembered Robert’s words about most people not knowing how to look, his frustration with witnesses.

‘There must be something you can tell me. Young, old? Fair, dark?’

‘Oh, fair, miss.’

She jumped on the word and moved her hand in front of her face, eyes even wider.

‘Very fair. His eyelashes, miss …’

My heart clutched itself. She swallowed and looked to the side, suddenly breathless.

‘And ever so good looking, miss.’

Laurence.

Betsy’s memory was almost squeezed dry. The letter was thin and light; she was sure it was addressed to Helen Dubois; no, she hadn’t noticed the postmark. When I was sure there would be nothing more, I stood up.

‘I’m not in trouble, am I? You won’t tell them?’

‘No, Betsy.’

I stopped at the door.

‘Don’t you tell anyone either.’

Running back upstairs, I felt as if an invisible claw was dragging me to the edge of a cliff. Laurence must have found out the missus was writing to me, and the master or Barrett had sent him to steal the letters – he had said himself he did everything they told him to. What had she written? The master’s web had finally reached my door.

The money I had hidden in the mattress went half into the purse tied to my petticoat and half into my small bag along with the flint mill, some powdered milk I had bought for Edward, and smaller items. I bundled up my black dress and the pieces I had sewn for the missus in the carpet bag. Much more, and I wouldn’t be able to carry Edward as well. This diary stayed safe in my pocket. Everything else was abandoned as it had fallen, box open, stockings over the back of the chair. There wasn’t time to make up a story for Mrs Cole.

I ran for it, leaning an elbow on the banister and sliding down to the hall. I was through the front door and onto the pavement in a heartbeat, walking quickly with my head down until I was on a main thoroughfare. It was a good half hour to the address the missus had sent. I hurried along, watchful as a bird hopping towards her nest. The river was out of sight, but I thought I could smell it as I got nearer, a shift in the air. Serle Place is close to the Inns of Court. I felt as if I was walking into the lion’s den. Each time I asked the way, people seemed to look at me too curiously.

Eventually, I found it – a short passage with a dead end. It looked as if it should have gone on for longer but the buildings on the other side had all rushed forward and got wedged. I paused, staring for long moments down both ends of the cramped street. The houses and shop fronts looked shut up. There were few people about, but they all looked as if they belonged there. I don’t think I was followed. With the last of the light, I slipped into the passage and found the right door. The key turned reluctantly. It felt as if the whole place had been abandoned years ago.

The first room was an empty shopfront or office with a dusty counter and a chair on its side. I stood still, trying to hear past the thud of blood in my ears. Nothing stirred. Locking the door behind me, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. I hadn’t thought to bring a light. At the back behind the counter was another door, just visible. I groped my way towards it, frightening myself with every scuff of my shoes on the bare boards. The room behind was even darker and smelt musty. If I hadn’t turned the key to the place myself, I would have sworn it was all wrong. This wasn’t what I had pictured for the missus.

Eyes don’t put any faith in darkness; if there’s nothing to see, they paint things in – other eyes staring back, hands reaching out. A rising army of murderers and ghouls threatened to rob me of my will and send me back out into the street, so I lunged forward and smacked my knee against a table leg. It shunted the furniture inches across the floor and set something on top rocking to and fro. I dropped what I was carrying and caught the lamp before it toppled. Pain unleashes anger, which, I now know, burns away fear. I swore like one of the stable lads, and the shadows shrank back into emptiness. More groping about revealed matches.

I shut the door to hide the light and inspected the room. There’s a jug of water and remains of a meal on the table – a hunk of bread and greasy bones. As well as the table, there is a chair and a pallet bed, a few bits of old plate and a chamber pot. Blankets heaped on the bed look much cleaner than the mattress. Everything else is coated in thick dust, sooty rags in the fireplace. There is a door and window onto blackness – a yard, maybe. I hung the servant’s dress I made for the missus against the dirty glass. It feels more like an end place than a beginning. I have thought so much of the red petticoat, of getting here, what comes next seems unreal, a thing of mist and mystery. Even now it is beyond belief – impossible that the missus will ever come, despite the petticoat and the key and the slip of paper.

My fingers ache from writing. There is nothing to do now but wait. I have to push Laurence from my mind or the fear threatens to overwhelm me. She will come. She will succeed. Only, my heart keeps jumping suddenly in my chest, as if it has private thoughts of its own and knows better.

Saturday, 25th May

Dear God, she is gone. She was right here. Edward was right here – I held him in my arms. But they are gone. I think we have been found out – what else? She would not leave without me. I have been waiting here more than an hour in the feeble light that reaches the window, unable to sit or stand for more than a minute. I cannot think. I cannot think what to do.

I fell asleep sometime in the night, and the banging on the door terrified me out of my dreams. My fingers were still curled around the key, and I was up from the pallet and into the front room before my eyes had fully opened. She pushed into the room as soon as I started to open the door and told me to close it quickly. Her face was a white blur in the dark; a black cloak and bonnet did away with the rest of her. I was so relieved she was here but found I didn’t know what to say, how to address her – our relations have been thrown clear of the bounds that shaped them.

‘Come into the back. Ma’am.’

I had turned the lamp down low to save oil. Once the door was shut and I brightened the light, we could look at each other. She was holding a Gladstone bag and soft leather satchel in one hand. Her other arm clutched a large bundle under the cloak. She took in the room as if she wasn’t sure what it had to do with her.

‘Let me, ma’am.’

I held out my hands. For a moment she looked at a loss but then dropped the bags and pushed back the cloak. Edward was wrapped up in a blanket, fast asleep, and clutching his favourite cloth with the embroidered rabbits. It was strange to see her holding him again. The picture of a mother – the circling, protective arm, the face turned to his. That tilt of the head is reserved only for babies, a special gesture of devotion. Her expression, though, was blank. She shifted to pass him over to me, and when I folded his warm and weighty little life into my arms, my heart felt like it was swallowing him up. All the fear and doubt fell away. This was right. This was why. We were making him safe.

The missus sat down on a chair. Neither of us spoke except for my soft cluckings to Edward. He didn’t stir at all. I lowered us down onto the pallet and looked at the missus.

‘Are you well, ma’am? Did you get away safely?’

She turned her head towards me and nodded faintly without meeting my eyes. It began to dawn on me that there was no mistress here. Both of us were now far out of our depth. I wanted to tell her about Laurence and the letter but was scared of pushing her deeper into the black wells. After a moment, she cleared her throat and something like animation came back into her face.

‘We were given so little time. I gave Esther the night free and tomorrow morning, but I will still be missed …’

‘The new nursemaid?’

‘One day more and I could have kept us safe for the morning.’

‘But how are we travelling, ma’am? If we leave early, we’ll still be away before—’

‘No.’

She shook her head and moved over to sit next to me on the pallet. Her tongue moved over her bottom lip.

‘Trust me, Harriet. It’s better this way – I can’t tell you everything.’

I remembered how I hadn’t understood her dismissal of Lily. She couldn’t tell me then either. But I had said the same thing to Francis, and now I may never know if he is safe, if his father chose to believe me.

‘You don’t have to protect me.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘I would rather know …’

She took hold of my arm and locked her eyes on mine.

‘It’s not only you I’m trying to protect. If we’re caught …’

We searched each other’s faces. I didn’t dare tell her I had gone to the Bowmans’.

‘It’s safer if you simply don’t know. I have said too much already.’

I didn’t speak, and eventually she lowered her eyes, drew away. Her words were almost too soft to hear.

‘I know I am asking for more than I may be forgiven.’

She placed a hand on the blanket I had laid over the awful mattress.

‘We should try and rest.’

It would have been strange enough lying down next to the missus on a normal day in a normal bed. I was conscious of breathing, of every movement, of the rank smell of the mattress that must have invaded her senses too. It was, at least, warm. She had shown no sign of disgust as we arranged a bedding of blankets and her cloak. Settling down as comfortably as if she was in her four-poster, she drew her hair over her shoulder and plaited it herself. Her matter-of-factness reassured me. I asked if I could know what place this was, and she almost smiled.

‘Lady Berrington owned the building. I inherited her property although naturally my husband controls it.’

She didn’t even take the trouble to sound bitter.

‘But she sent all the keys directly to me with some money in cash. I thought it was out of the weakness and confusion of her mind. Now, I wonder.’

‘Won’t … he look here?’

‘I think not. I handed the keys to him. I thought he might find out about the money otherwise. But I kept this one. All the buildings in this passage are to be destroyed to make way for a new street.’

I looked at her in alarm.

‘When?’

‘Not tonight.’

She sounded amused.

‘We’ll be gone before he or the barrels of gunpowder arrive.’

She lay down on her back. I thought she was going to sleep, but before I could dim the lamp she spoke again.

‘I wasn’t kind to Lady Berrington.’

I had thought as much but couldn’t say so.

‘She spoke very fondly of you, ma’am.’

There was a silence. I’m not sure she believed me.

‘I thought she was against my marriage because she wanted to keep me trapped in Gloucester Square with her. But perhaps it was more than that. She can’t have known what Ralph is, but she didn’t like him.’

I remembered the marmalade smeared on Lord Berrington’s portrait.

‘I don’t think her own marriage was happy, ma’am.’

There was a pause as she thought about it.

‘Marriage devours women. It gnaws and gnaws until there are only a few scattered pieces left.’

I had a vision of Mrs B in fragments – her hard jewels, the failing body parts, a need for gossip. All the indigestible bits. I felt a bleakness descend on me and wondered what would have survived of me with William. The missus continued.

‘She was a good friend to me. And wiser than I ever gave her credit for. I was too proud to see it.’

She shifted on the mattress.

‘You have been a friend to me too, Harriet. Not many servants would pity their mistress or notice how little freedom most ladies have.’

I realised she was talking about reading my diary.

‘I watched you cleaning the chiffonier once. You were absorbed in the work. I felt envious of that.’

It almost sprang from my lips that some help with the furniture would have been welcome, especially that chiffonier with its intricate carvings and fussy gilt mounts. I thought what Clockface would have made of it – her mistress with her sleeves rolled up and dirty wax under her fingernails. But the missus wasn’t really after the life of a housemaid. She spoke again as if she’d heard my thoughts.

‘I don’t mean the – what did you call it? – the drudgery of it, only the satisfaction you found in your work. I have so wanted to walk out in the world with my own banner to unfurl. To risk standing before people on my own terms – to sing, freely, as I sang in the vicarage. In that way, I have always believed I might do some small good with this life. I envied you your freedom to leave if you wished, to find another place to …’

She paused, searching.

‘… to be the high priestess of the objects in your care.’

I felt my cheeks flush, hearing my own words repeated back to me, and started fussing with the blanket.

‘You will be the high priestess of the theatre, ma’am.’

She was watching me.

‘I understand why you chose not to marry William, Harriet. It was brave all the same. I think we have both been governed by a desire for more, to live our lives for ourselves.’

I looked at Edward lying on the mattress between us and thought to myself, not entirely – I do not wish to live entirely for myself. He was sleeping on so soundly I put my lips to his head, worried about fever.

‘His breathing is very short, ma’am.’

She looked away.

‘He’s just sleeping.’

He wasn’t. When I woke from a fitful half-slumber a few hours later, he still hadn’t moved. In my dreams, the building was being pulled down on top of us and I was smothered by dust and falling masonry. I found the corner of the blanket had rucked up and my face was pressed to the foul mattress. Wiping my mouth, I sat up. A very dim light was coming from the shrouded window. The missus was lying straight and flat on her back, staring at the ceiling – like a corpse laid out, came the unwelcome thought. Edward was very still between us. With sudden terrible misgivings, I leaned down to his face. He was warm, his breathing shallow. I scooped him up.

‘There’s something wrong with him, ma’am.’

The missus slowly raised herself into a sitting position.

‘He’s perfectly all right.’

I jogged him gently, but he was floppy in my arms.

‘I can’t wake him.’

‘Then don’t.’

Her manner was cold again. She drew her knees up and leaned her forehead against them. I scrambled to my feet, still holding him, and tried to open the door at the back. After a few shoves with my shoulder, it scraped open onto a tiny yard. The daylight was a shock.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Giving him some air.’

‘Come inside now.’

She was there, pulling me back in and heaving the door shut as she spoke.

‘There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s sleeping it off.’

‘Sleeping what off?’

She had walked away again, unplaiting her hair.

‘What did you give him, ma’am?’

‘You must stop calling me ma’am.’

She snapped it.

‘It’s called Mother’s Friend. Is that the dress against the window?’

‘You gave him laudanum?’

I stared at her through the gloom. It was even darker since my eyes had been flashed with daylight.

‘How much, ma’am?’

She turned suddenly.

‘Stop questioning me. And stop calling me ma’am.’

Giving laudanum to a baby. I’ve heard of mothers accidentally quieting their babies forever with the likes of Mother’s Friend. She took down the dress and shook it out.

‘I couldn’t risk him crying and alerting the servants.’

She hung the dress I’d sewn over the chair and seemed to be looking about her. I was too alarmed to answer. Laying Edward back down on the bed, I made sure there was nothing too tight around his throat and chest, and pushed the door open again.

‘You need light.’

She didn’t protest this time but found the chamber pot and pushed it with her toe into a space. I put my boots on and went out into the yard. There is a ruined privy in the corner, and I relieved myself there as best I could amongst broken boards, sticking-out nails, and spiders’ webs. It’s odd to think that as a servant I’ve seen my employers in their most personal moments but pissing in front of the missus myself would feel shocking. It’s true, I must stop calling her ma’am.

The dress fitted her well. I went to help her with her hair, but she shrugged me off.

‘Do as you would if I were another maid.’

With her bonnet on, she looked like a domestic servant in Sunday clothes – except for her face and hands. I worry she will stand out more as such a refined-looking maid than she would as a lady. It looked like dressing up. Laurence’s face with the lace and rouge rose unbidden in my mind.

She was irritable and withdrawn and sent me out shortly after for water and bread for the journey. I wonder if it was to be rid of me. For all she said in the night, it seemed hard to be left in the dark about what so nearly concerns me. I studied Edward again before I left and gave him a kiss.

Walking abroad, I felt certain every passer-by must know my guilt by my face. Every glance seemed suspicious. My hands and voice shook as I handed over money for bread and asked for the jug to be filled. I also bought a pie, thinking we could mash some up for Edward since it seems unlikely the missus has brought anything with her, and a bottle of beer. Turning from the bar in the public house, I caught a movement too quick amongst the slow stares and pressing bodies of early drinkers and market workers already halfway through their day. When I turned a corner, I fancied I caught it again – a ducking away out of sight. I stopped so suddenly, thinking it might be Laurence, a woman with a great basket on her shoulders ran into the back of me, making me drop the beer. She scolded at the top of her voice, and I hurried away, too frightened even to try and save the bottle, which had rolled into the gutter. When I arrived back at the passage, I had a sense that I had been gone too long. The street door was unlocked. My eyes searched the gloom and scanned the yard; everywhere was as quiet as the grave.

I will wait until dark, and then I will go and hide myself outside the master’s house. There must be a way of discovering if they were found out and returned there. What he would do to her! I don’t know if I am safe here or not.

Later

The front door opened. I heard its scrape and rattle, and all my fretting and scheming fell away in a rush of relief. She had returned. They were safe. I jumped up and hurried through to greet them. Already, I could feel the words of outrage billowing up like storm clouds. They began spilling out of my mouth in a wail, and then died utterly. The only person in the front room was Laurence.

There was a moment neither of us moved, and then I opened my mouth to scream. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d tried. Next thing, he was on me with his hand over my mouth – his ring dug into my jaw – and pushing me through to the back room. Every part of me that Mr Garston had touched felt him again. I was stricken somehow, unable to move. It was as if I was both in my body and outside it at the same time, watching. Laurence was telling me to shut my mouth. He let go when he saw I wasn’t struggling and started saying something else. The jug of water was on the table. With both my insides and out in sudden harmony, I picked it up and threw it at his head. He ducked, and it clonked the wall before falling and breaking in a splosh of pottery. I went at him, raking and snarling, but he was both stronger than Mr Garston and sober. He bound me with an iron hug. I’d have used my teeth again except I finally heard what he was saying.

‘I’m here to take you to her, you mad bitch.’

I stared into his face.

‘She’s waiting in the cab for you.’

He stared back.

‘Do you understand?’

I didn’t. He let me go anyway, swearing under his breath, and bent down for his cap that had been knocked off.

‘What are we taking?’

I watched him pick up the Gladstone bag and, looking around, realised my carpet bag was missing. Alarm hammered in my chest. I snatched up my small bag, which still had my money and the rest in it, and then stumbled across to the satchel. My black dress that had been in the carpet bag was inside on top of her things.

‘Bring that blanket. And the food.’

I stared at him and then at the things he had pointed out. He waited, his own arms full.

‘Or be hungry and cold, it’s up to you.’

Shaking, I wrapped up the food and fetched the blanket, then followed him out into the passage and the street. He whistled cheerfully. There was a cab, waiting by the kerb, and when he opened the door, there was the missus. I wanted to sit down and cry.

‘Up you go.’

He got in with us, sitting opposite, and we rolled off. I looked at the missus for an explanation, but her face was mostly hidden by the bonnet. Her hands lay loosely in her lap, not neatly brought together like a lady’s. They seemed abandoned somehow. Empty. I jerked as if someone had pinched me and foolishly looked about the cab, as if the baby might have been stuffed under a seat.

‘Where is he? Where’s Edward?’

The missus turned. She looked awful, pinched and grey. Her eyes seemed to have retreated into her head.

‘He’s safe.’

‘Safe? What do you mean?’

‘Don’t make a fuss. It’s better …’

‘No!’

I looked between them as if I’d woken up to find myself amongst thieves and murderers.

‘You can’t leave him.’

‘I have no choice.’

Speaking seemed an effort, as if she was reading something out while her mind was elsewhere.

‘Use your wits, Harriet. It is too dangerous. Ralph will know we have fled by now, and he will do anything to find his son. The police will be looking for a woman with a baby. Every station, every port – there won’t be a mother or nurse left unmolested. There is a much greater chance of escaping notice without him. We are already late – they will be looking now.’

I was shaking my head, sudden tears making everything lose shape and swim into chaos.

‘You can’t.’

She tried to take hold of my hands, but I pulled away.

‘I won’t go without him.’

‘Listen to me.’

‘No.’

‘Laurence will write …’

I gave a mad sort of laugh.

‘You think your child is safe with him?’

‘He will keep watch on where he is, that’s all …’

‘He stole a letter.’

I pointed at him, almost shrieking.

‘He bribed the maid at my boarding house and took a letter sent to Helen Dubois.’

The faintest surprise passed over his face.

‘Stop shouting, Harriet.’

The missus made an impatient, near frantic movement with her hand and turned her head away. I peered at her.

‘You know?’

She didn’t answer. I looked from one to the other.

‘What are you hiding from me? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You know why. It’s safer …’

‘Stop saying that! What have you done? I won’t go until you tell me. I won’t leave Edward.’

One of them must have signalled the driver as the cab jolted to a stop. I blinked past tears. The missus’ face swam back into sight – it was hard, black-eyed.

‘Leave, then. I won’t stop you.’

I stared at her, unable to move.

‘You presume much, Harriet.’

I felt ill with rage. My voice rose to a wail.

‘What choice do I have? You have told me nothing. I am giving up everything for you and all you do is lie to me. You never meant to take Edward with you – you just don’t want the master to have him …’

‘Quiet!’

I don’t know if you can say something glowed black, but that’s how her eyes looked. Her face terrified me. No one spoke. After a moment, she gathered herself.

‘There is also yourself to consider, isn’t there, Harriet? You never truly wanted the things you are making such a fuss about giving up. Marriage, domestic service – I thought you wanted more from your life? Or was that only idle dreaming for your diary?’

She glared at me.

‘It is not too late. You can get down here.’

We both knew what she was doing, goading me into place. But it was true what she said. The thought of stepping down from the cab, from the chance of this new and unknown life, from her, would be like stepping into grey cloud. Laurence leaned forward.

‘You need to be on that train, missus.’

She put a hand up to him and continued to watch me. I wiped my eyes.

‘But I thought we would have Edward …’

Turning awkwardly, she touched the edge of my skirt.

‘We will come back for him when it’s safe to do so.’

‘How long will that be?’

I felt like a child whining to its mother.

‘A year perhaps.’

‘A year?’

‘Six months then.’

She wasn’t looking quite at me.

‘As soon as we are settled, and I am … working.’

The word sounded strange in her mouth. It must have felt strange to her too, the way she hesitated.

‘You are telling the truth?’

She turned to wipe the tears from my cheek, not gently, and nodded.

We made the rest of the journey in silence. I was sick with misery and doubt. Edward’s absence pained me keenly – both there in the cab and looking forward through all the travels ahead. We are going so far, so very far away. He was the one certainty I had been clinging to, the only thing my imagination could reliably work upon. I had seen myself holding him while trains rocked and the missus slept; we were to discover all the new things on the ship together; later, as a treat, we would stand at the side of the stage so he could watch his mother sing. I wanted to be his nursemaid, in short, but much more than that. As long as he needed me, I would have something more important than myself to care for. Now he had been robbed even from my imaginings.

Laurence saw to our tickets at Euston. The missus clutched his arm for a long moment and looked at him without speaking. Their manner in the carriage, their secrets, sent dread spiralling through me. How could she trust him? I wanted to leave him and the station crowds behind us as quickly as possible. He caught my elbow as I was about to step onto the train and held something out.

‘Thank you.’

It was the red ribbon, neatly rolled and secured with a pin. He placed it in my palm. I looked at his face, unsure what it meant, and he winked. Then he turned on his heel and jogged away down the platform.

We have been on the train for two or three hours and have the carriage to ourselves. Now we are on our way, I feel the weight of my failures. I never found Lily. I can only hope Francis’s parents believed me. Edward, I try not to think about at all. I must look forward now and help the missus. She is asleep opposite as she has been for most of the journey. One of the folded-up blankets cushions her head against the side. Exhaustion and perhaps grief have disguised her face better than any dress and bonnet. The movement of the train rocks her, sometimes perilously – it seems the blanket will slip. I keep thinking of the canary fluttering into the trees after she freed it from its cage, how small and fragile and doomed it looked. But then its cage was no protection either. I tried sketching her at the back of this book earlier but haven’t the skill – I wish I could make a photograph. Or perhaps, as Mrs B would have said, the words in this diary will make the best portrait. Nobody has watched the missus as I have or sees her as I do. Perhaps I shall read my words back one day and understand clearly everything that has surprised or hurt me about her. One thing is certain – I have no one else now.

Wednesday, 29th May

We board tomorrow. Our tickets are secured, and home for our last night in England is a dirty hotel near the docks. Liverpool clatters and clunks and chokes – at least where we are. I can see the steelworks from our window, the mighty smokestacks. It dawned on me earlier that the iron ore clawed out of the hills at home is meant for such places, just like the master’s coal. Father’s poor lungs and Duncan’s twisted leg are linked to these huge buildings, the rail tracks and steamships carting us about. It all exists because of what is hidden out of sight beneath our feet and the great efforts to dig it up. A sense of dread filled me which had no certain origin or outline. I wonder if Mother is right, and we should simply have left the stones where they were.

We change lodgings every night, and our names change every time we are compelled to give them. For fear of slipping, we no longer call each other anything but ‘my dear’. At night, she whispers to me about the great singers she has seen perform, the theatres and costumes, her favourite composers. It is as if she is letting her inner world, the place she truly inhabits, finally reach the surface now we are away from London. She speaks much of the building we shall pass through as immigrants when we first arrive. It was a theatre at one time, and her beloved Jenny Lind sang Italian operas there. This strange coincidence burns with meaning for her; she repeats the fact, clinging to it as if it is a talisman against failure.

The future is becoming real, pushing the past from her thoughts, I think. We had one last conversation about what we are leaving behind. She woke on the train as I was still writing the last entry. Watched me for some time, I think.

‘If someone had read your diary, what would it have told them about where we are going?’

‘No one read it.’

I shut the book in a way that shut down any more questions. Meeting her eyes, though, I saw curiosity rather than criticism. I shrugged.

‘I was careful.’

‘I have no doubt.’

I traced the edge of the book’s cover with a finger.

‘Anyone reading it before now would think we are on our way to Italy. They would be looking for a red petticoat.’

It was a feeble attempt to cover our tracks and sounded as much. I became defensive.

‘You think I shouldn’t have written anything at all. If they found me first …’

She shook her head and laughed.

‘If they had found you, the game would have been lost already. I only meant what would they have learned about your hopes for the future. And you are right, I have asked you to give up so much else, even the comfort of your friends. It would be monstrous to deny you the consolations of a diary.’

I must have looked uncomfortable, but she had turned to the window. Rain marched across farmland, trampling crops.

‘You were lucky at the Bowmans’.’

I stared at her with my mouth open. She glanced at me and leaned forward to touch my knee, a reassurance.

‘Ralph enjoyed telling me, that’s all.’

‘I had to do something about Francis …’

‘I know.’

My doubts about Laurence surfaced.

‘How did they know I would go there? Only if Francis told Laurence that I …’

She cut me off with a wave of her hand.

‘Barrett made Francis talk. He can make any servant say anything.’

She sighed.

‘I don’t believe Francis’s parents will keep him at Finton Hall much longer. Ralph can only smile away so much eccentricity in his own house.’

I remembered the flicker of doubt in Mr Bowman’s eyes.

‘I hope so.’

She nodded.

‘And remember, no one knows we are together. Not even Ralph. He thinks we are enemies.’

Her eyes narrowed with pleasure.

‘The argument he overheard between us in my room was real, after all. I did just enough to leave no doubt, speaking unkindly about you to the Trevelyans when I knew he would be listening.’

My heart ached at that. I am leaving behind so many false selves. What Lizzie must think of me – I never said sorry or goodbye. It came to me for the first time that I shall never see Mrs T’s starry smiles or Tabby’s deft movements again.

‘You will miss the vicarage?’

I wanted for comfort’s sake to speak about them, but she looked at me quite sharply and her question was weighted.

‘You mean the vicar?’

I was too surprised to answer. She saw the confusion in my face and softened a little.

‘I know what people say about my visits to the vicarage.’

‘I never listened to them, ma’am.’

It must have been thinking myself back into Finton Hall that made me reply like the loyal housemaid. I caught myself, annoyed. She gave a scornful laugh.

‘Why not? They are half right. I would have gladly followed him into hell for those hours of happiness.’

Scenes from the vicarage flashed through my mind. That dour man. But there was no use staring at her like an astonished child. She was putting us on a different footing, an honest one finally.

‘But couldn’t he have helped you?’

‘Why would he help me?’

‘If you love each other …’

She looked genuinely shocked.

‘My dear, he loves his wife.’

Her chin lifted as she recalculated.

‘No. He loves music. Then God. Then Isabel. Music is his true religion, that’s where he worships. Christianity is how he deals with the tedium of the rest of life. It simplifies things by having rules. About wives deserting their husbands, for instance.’

‘But if music means so much to him, your singing …’

‘Makes me useful, a conduit, not the thing itself. He certainly has never confused it with the mistress of Finton Hall. That’s what I am so grateful for. We weren’t lovers, as people think. What he offered me was far greater. In the music room, I escaped myself and became something … weightless. But outside of it, I am as tedious to him as the rest of his parishioners.’

Her eyes glinted. The tears hardened rather than softened her expression, like a polished surface. I tried to say I couldn’t believe it, but a lie would have curdled the intimacy of our talk. What she said next shocked me more than anything.

‘Only Ralph really knew me.’

‘The master?’

She spoke quickly.

‘Never call him that again. Call him anything else in the world.’

Then she nodded.

‘It’s strange, isn’t it? He sees more clearly than anyone. There isn’t a corner of my soul he didn’t pry into. I am not sure he is human.’

I remembered how he had looked like Milton’s Satan in the light from the flint mill.

‘He’s a fiend, you mean?’

‘Something like that. A very devil, although not a fallen angel. I am not sure he was ever beautiful.’

She nodded in agreement with herself.

‘Beauty hurts him, and I think that is why. He desires it, but he doesn’t trust it. He has to pit himself against it. He has to win.’

Her brow furrowed slightly. Mine did too.

‘Hurts him?’

She thought for a moment.

‘You know his father was a miner? He was in an accident underground when Ralph was very young. His injuries were terrible, but he didn’t die immediately. Ralph remembers the smell of the sick room – the dressings needed changing faster than they could be washed. He told me how he had looked at his father’s face and didn’t recognise it as a face at all – the most awful sounds, dreadful groans came from it.

‘The mine’s childless owners adopted Ralph soon after. His life became one of comfort and refinement overnight, but I am not sure he ever really left that sick room. Another man might have turned such suffering to good and felt pity for his fellow men, but for Ralph, it poisoned everything that came after. He has worked hard to leave the ugliness behind, to live in beauty, but he doesn’t believe in it; he certainly can’t create it. So, he destroys it. He collects men like Murray and Hicks and delights in throwing them innocent children. Each child sacrificed is proof that he survived. Destruction and chaos define him now, and power, of course. He does it because he can. He fills his house with precious and beautiful things, people amongst them, so he can control them. It gives him power over what otherwise torments him – the beauty he sees but cannot have. It is his way of winning. He always wins.’

She paused and said it again to herself.

‘Always.’

Her gaze fell on the diary in my lap.

‘No one looks at a thing like he does – he feeds on it. It’s cannibalistic. He did it to you.’

It irks me how she brings up without shame things I have written, as if I shared them willingly. I feel the intrusion more keenly now I know she is as sane as I am. She continued.

‘You were half in love with him after he showed you the flint and steel mill.’

‘I was not.’

She smiled again, almost apologetically.

‘He made you feel beautiful, didn’t he? We all love the devil until he shows us his true face.’

I was nettled. It wasn’t me that had married the monster.

‘If that’s true, why are you so sure Laurence isn’t a devil?’

She looked at me sharply.

‘Without Laurence, we wouldn’t be here. He has sacrificed as much as you have. More.’

‘Why?’

I glared back at her.

‘Why would he help you?’

She turned her head away impatiently for a second. When she turned back, she looked me full in the eye.

‘Mary. He would have taken her from there long ago if he could have found a way to escape Ralph. It will haunt him for the rest of his life that he didn’t act sooner, before Mary was hurt. That is what gives him the strength now.’

I couldn’t find a word to say. She continued.

‘Laurence has never been allowed to live openly, as his soul dictates, to wear his heart on his sleeve. His affections …’

‘We saw him with Mr Hicks’s valet. Mary and me.’

I blurted it out, cutting her off. She looked at me with real interest.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Together. In his bed. And I caught him with the garden lad too.’

I burned hotter and grew fierce.

‘But then you likely know that already from my diary.’

‘Why were you in his room?’

It was like talking to Lizzie about the pictures – they both took hold of the wrong thing on purpose.

‘What does that matter? Mary ran away, that’s how she ended up in the library with those men. They must have seen her or heard her in the passageway.’

‘Oh …’

She looked to the side, remembering.

‘The library. You were going to look at the photographs. Ralph would have enjoyed that. He enjoys leaving his special collections about. There’s always the chance a servant or guest might stumble upon them.’

I thought about it. Perhaps that was why he let me stay on at Finton Hall – his need for an audience, a witness. He wanted me to see the truth in the paintings, the books, the flint mill, knowing it would hurt me and that I could do nothing about it. ‘Behold!’ he had urged when we first met. But it was the missus, not the master, that insisted I should use the library. I spoke pointedly.

‘Is that why you urged me so strongly to read the books?’

She held my eye for a moment.

‘Yes. I suppose I hoped if you did see them, it would make you think differently about him.’

I huffed and repeated Lizzie’s words, claiming her worldliness for my own.

‘I imagine every gentleman’s house in the country is stuffed full of pictures like that.’

The missus tilted her head and frowned at me.

‘Some, yes. But the pictures of children?’

I remembered the photograph of Joe, the boot boy – the master had held it out to me – and felt sickened. I changed the subject.

‘Laurence was wearing your lace, and my ribbon and Mary’s rouge. He was the thief. He must have stolen the ring he gave to Mary too.’

She sighed.

‘I gave him that ring and the lace. And a few other things.’

It was a detail she threw off before fixing me with a look.

‘Do you know what is going to happen next? He is going to marry Mary.’

I let out a laugh of disbelief.

‘She’ll never have him.’

‘Then she’s a fool. He loves her. You have a lot to learn, Harriet.’

We were both silent and angry for a moment. She spoke first.

‘I see it is difficult for you to understand. But if Laurence is a devil, he is a lesser one than I. Ralph picked him to be an ornament, another pretty thing to add to his collection. He might as well have been shipped over from the colonies with the other curiosities.’

Her expression turned bullish.

‘Being prized for how you look can be as great a misfortune as being hated for it. Laurence has known no other life, but it doesn’t mean he wanted this one. When Ralph understood what he was, where he went for company, he and Barrett used it to bind him even more tightly to them. His very life is in their hands. They could have him jailed, or worse.’

She eyed me.

‘Not every secret in Finton Hall is wicked – do not mistake the servant for the master. The theft of your ribbon is the greatest harm Laurence has done you.’

I became aware of the tidy roll I had put in my pocket with the diary.

‘Why would he betray Mary, if he cares for her so much?’

She sat back a little.

‘He isn’t an angel. But wouldn’t you take what happiness you could find in that house? Share light and warmth where it was offered?’

I looked away, thinking of something I had taken from the library besides the flint mill. The missus continued.

‘But Mary – what happened to her. Laurence loves her deeply. He’s willing even to risk defying Ralph.’

I remembered Mary’s face as she fled Laurence’s room.

‘I can’t think she will forgive him.’

She sighed again.

‘They mean much to each other. You saw that; you wrote about it.’

I turned my head quickly to the window.

‘Please don’t talk about my diary.’

There was a silence, though I could tell she was studying me.

‘I only read your diary to see the house through your eyes. I needed to know if you were in any danger from Ralph. But it became about more than that, I confess. I couldn’t give it up. You helped me see more than I expected. And I became … I became reliant on it.’

It wasn’t a good enough reason to my mind, and I didn’t reply. She sighed.

‘I understand. One word more. Clockface.’

I glanced sideways. Her face broke into its wide smile.

‘Oh, what else was she? Ding Dong?’

She laughed with real mirth, throwing her head back. I was in no mood to be mollified and refused to smile.

‘We should have been friends sooner, Harriet.’

It was a deliberate appeal to my affections, using my name and all. As I watched her, I began to doubt if I could ever create a true portrait through my words. She is no longer the pale lady I met at Mrs B’s, or the unhappy wife pushed to the edge of reason by Gethin. I am still becoming acquainted with this iron-willed woman who refuses to be trapped and silenced, who must have schemed for months to leave her husband and never lost her nerve. A goddess after all, perhaps, but one without a heaven, stumbling over the same sharp stones as the rest of us. Her eyes were still shining at me, an invitation. I remembered where we were going, and why – how the impossible had, within a matter of weeks, come within touching distance, all because of her. I leaned forward and took her hand. She placed her other one on top and gently rested her forehead against mine. It doesn’t matter anymore who reads this diary. We are past the point of returning. The only thing in front of us now is America.