Rivals in the City (21 page)

“I am both glad and relieved, Angelica. You are my only remaining relation; my child. I should like to know that our future is free of such shadows.”

Mother and daughter sat in silence for a few minutes, still clasping hands. Their words, however, reverberated in Mary’s thoughts. Angelica’s doubts, and Mrs Thorold’s clever, circumspect denials, were oddly reminiscent of her own last interviews with her father. She was glad that he’d lacked the strength for such strategy, an eloquent succession of half-truths. Better to have a drug-addicted killer for a parent than a lying murderess. Or perhaps Angelica would disagree. Both Lang Jin Hai and Maria Thorold were criminals in the eyes of the government. Ultimately, that was all that mattered.

Enough. Mary bit her lip. Any superficial resemblances ended there.

Mrs Thorold broke the lull. “Are you cold? Shall we walk?”

“I would prefer to go somewhere warm. Indoors. A coffee-room, perhaps?” Angelica hesitated. “My treat.”

“At this hour? My dear, your Viennese habits are showing. Any of London’s coffee-houses willing to serve ladies – poor excuses though they are for true Continental cafés – are long since closed. Ditto for restaurants, if we could even afford one.”

“I’d forgotten,” admitted Angelica. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it but to remain here in the park.”

“I’d have thought you’d be inured to the cold, living so far north as you do.”

Angelica shivered. “It’s a different cold, here. Damp. It gets into everything, and one’s clothing is never quite dry.”

“Terrible how one doesn’t even notice it until one’s been away, and suddenly it’s insupportable.” Mother and daughter laughed briefly, united in discomfort and expatriation.

“So tell me, then,” said Angelica, emboldened by this renewed – perhaps brand-new – intimacy. “How much longer do you intend staying in town? There’s no suitable work. You’ve no more jewels to pawn. How and where will you live, Mamma?” A thought seemed to occur to her. “My situation in Vienna is little better. I lodge with my music teacher’s family and share a bedroom with his young daughter, so I can’t even offer you a roof over your head.”

“That wasn’t my secret intention behind our meeting,” said Mrs Thorold, sounding dry but unoffended. “I haven’t much of a history as a mother, but the least I can do is not hinder your musical career by clinging to your petticoats.”

“That’s the third time you’ve not answered my question, Mamma. This refusal is unnerving. Why are you so loath to tell me about your future?” Angelica’s voice held a new note of anxiety. “You are not planning anything …
extreme
, are you?”

Another pause, during which Mary’s thoughts ran in an entirely new direction. She had always assumed that Mrs Thorold’s plans must include another large and audacious criminal scheme. But what if she’d been wrong? What if Mrs Thorold intended self-harm, instead, and this was her way of saying farewell to her daughter? It would be a shameful end to a stained and warped life, but it would, at least, be her decision. One couldn’t say the same for the workhouse. And if Mrs Thorold did plan to commit suicide, what was Mary’s responsibility to stop her before she could take another life, even if it was her own?

Mary thought again of her father. Was a courageous suicide of more value than a dishonourable life? It was the Chinese way, yet he had not chosen it. Perhaps her father had been more English than she knew. He might have understood Angelica’s bleak horror of the taboo of self-murder. The stigma that would attach to Angelica and any children she might have. The denial of burial in Christian ground. Above all, the endless, exquisite anxiety about how different things might have been.

“If by ‘extreme’, you mean destroying myself, then you may rest assured, my girl. There is yet too much fire in this old bed of coals for me to entertain the possibility.”

Such are the complexities of family devotion that Angelica’s shoulders actually sagged with relief. Eventually, however, she said in a wary tone, “How else might one define ‘extreme’?”

“How might others define the term, you mean?”

“You’re prevaricating again, Mamma.”

“True,” conceded Mrs Thorold. “For I should not describe my plans as the least bit extreme. In fact, they seem rather apt, to me, featuring a strong element of poetic justice.”

Mary rolled her eyes. Mrs Thorold had the most thoroughly fractured sense of justice she’d ever encountered. “Apt”, from her, could mean anything at all, so long as it significantly benefited her.

“Mother!”

“Hush, Angelica. We are yet in public.” Mrs Thorold turned her head left and right, glancing behind the bench. Mary froze. The darkness was in her favour – by rights, the glare of the gaslamp ought to render blackly invisible anything outside the glowing circle – but she had a half-superstitious faith in Mrs Thorold’s powers.

“Mamma, you are talking in riddles!” Angelica’s voice was no less fierce for being a whisper.

Mrs Thorold sounded amused, indulgent. “You were always very literal. Shall I unfold my scheme for you, then?”

“Anything, so long as you stop hinting and alluding in that portentous way.”

“I am speaking entirely seriously now, daughter. I can only take you into my confidence if you promise faithfully to keep my plans a secret, and never reveal what I am saying to another living soul. Are you able to make and keep that promise?”

Mary hitched herself forward very slightly, fighting to hear clearly over the sudden roar of blood in her ears.

Angelica was silent for a short while. Then, in a very subdued voice, she said, “Is it possible to make such a pledge without becoming part of the scheme? I can’t promise to join anything blindly. Not even for you, Mamma.”

“That is wise, Angelica. And yes, so long as you swear perfect secrecy, I shall not ask you for a thing.”

“In that case, I promise.”

“Swear it,” insisted her mother. “On your father’s grave.”

Angelica’s voice was shaking now, but she said in a low, hoarse tone, “I swear on Papa’s grave.”

When Mrs Thorold spoke, her voice was buoyant with satisfaction. “Thank you. I do not believe your confidence shall be misplaced, my dear, but I shall first explain to you the reasoning behind my decisions.

“As Englishwomen, I suspect you and I have always had an unthinking confidence in our nation. The excellence of our policemen, the protection of the common law and the essential fairness of the judiciary were things we took for granted. So far as we deigned to think of them, we were grateful to live in such an enlightened country, especially in comparison to the bloody violence that wracked the Continent less than a generation ago. For me – and, I suspect, for you – that illusion was abruptly smashed two years ago when your father was arrested, disgraced, jailed and indirectly murdered by the very government we’d trusted.” Mrs Thorold paused here, but Angelica made no response. “It was this betrayal that left me homeless, and worse than a widow. The only thing that stood between me and utter destitution was the handful of jewels I’d managed to hide – illegally, of course. Even my journey to France, where I desperately sought to recover my health after such a brutal series of shocks, was considered against the law, for not content with obliterating my husband and his life’s work, the police also sought to destroy me with their preposterous and utterly impossible accusations.” She was panting now, in her vehemence, and still Angelica remained silent, motionless.

“Now, on the brink of starvation once more, I seek to support myself. I do not seek the comfort and plenty to which I was born and to which I was accustomed, but merely to keep body and soul together. I find it impossible. There is no honest work I can perform, nobody who will employ me, no honest opportunity available to a lady of my age and education and talents. I have made up my mind, Angelica, that I cannot live in a country such as this; a country that sought to crush me under its heel; a country that cast me to the dogs. And so, tomorrow, I depart its shores for the last time. I shall never return.”

Despite her knowledge of Mrs Thorold’s true history, and despite her ready scepticism, Mary found herself somewhat moved by this florid speech. It was too easy to imagine a false accusation that would effortlessly destroy a life. After all, Mary had herself been accused, tried, convicted. The law had been just as harsh and unforgiving as Mrs Thorold made it out to be. But she mustn’t allow personal feeling to sway her judgement. As it happened, Mrs Thorold was guilty of the crimes with which she was charged, and that changed the portrait entirely: from one of pathos and female disadvantage to one of an expert manipulator who would say, and probably do, whatever was necessary to achieve her ends.

“That does not surprise me, Mamma,” said Angelica in low, emotional tones. “I, too, find it easier to live abroad and alone because of what happened to Papa. But I remain entirely in the dark as to how you intend to support yourself in France. Surely the same obstacles exist in that country? Unless…” She suddenly sat bolt upright and swivelled towards her mother, voice rising in her excitement. “Unless you came back to London to retrieve some jewels or gold you had hidden away somewhere? Perhaps they are even in our house – the old house, I mean – in Cheyne Walk?”

“That would be apt, in a fairy tale,” said Mrs Thorold. “And yet you are not so far from the truth. Are you certain you wish to hear me out, daughter? My tale is still largely untold, and you may go away from here as innocent as you came, if I stop now.”

Once again, Mary couldn’t help but hear an echo of her own life: the moment when Anne and Felicity asked if, as an agent, she wished to hear more about a case. The point at which she was entrusted with dangerous information.

Angelica’s consideration was brief but agonizing to Mary. Much as she wished Angelica to follow her own conscience, this was the best opportunity Mary would ever have to learn how Mrs Thorold thought. Finally, Angelica released a pent-up breath. “Yes, Mamma,” she said in an admirably steady voice. “I do.”

“Very well,” said her mother. She paused for a moment, and Mary was tempted to creep forward, beyond the protection of the broad tree trunk. What was Mrs Thorold about to do? Half a moment later, she heard a swish of skirts, the crunch of a boot on gravel. She immediately shrank back against the tree trunk, trying to slow the pounding of her heart.

“Mamma, where are you going?”

“I mistrust this spot. It’s overlooked.”

“It’s the most open bench in the square,” said Angelica, impatience in her voice. “There’s absolutely nothing around us, all the way back to that tree.”

“And behind the tree?”

Mary tensed, ready for flight.

Angelica sighed. “Mamma, you are stalling again. Pray do me the courtesy of speaking to me frankly, as an adult, instead of toying with my emotions.”

Mrs Thorold seemed to resettle herself on the bench with a sigh. “You remember your solemn oath.”

“Yes.”

“My intention is this: before I shake the dust of this country from my sandals, I shall take what I need from its coffers. I shall perform an act of restoration to our family, of true justice. And in doing so, I shall ensure my future – and yours, too.”

Angelica was swift to slice through her pompous rhetoric. “Mamma, you are talking of
theft
?”

“It requires a certain Robin Hood morality, I grant you,” said Mrs Thorold, “but once one opens one’s mind and sees things from all sides, it is the only possible solution.”

“But how on earth…? Mamma, are you feverish? These are the ravings of a–a–a person who is unwell,” Angelica finished, limpingly.

“A madwoman or a lunatic? Oh no, my dear. I promise you I am of sound mind.”

“Then … how? How can a lone woman, without any experience or training, steal enough valuables to make such a colossal risk worthwhile?”

Mary could hear the smile in Mrs Thorold’s voice. “In being just that: a humble, underestimated lone woman.” Again, that jolt through Mary’s body, as Mrs Thorold’s wickedness mapped itself onto her own life, her own beliefs. The skill of the overlooked female: that was the central premise of the Agency, the reason for its many brilliant and unlikely successes. And now Mrs Thorold was intent on exploiting it for criminal ends. Perhaps this ought to have come as no surprise, for she had done much the same thing two years earlier, as the apparently invalid wife of a rich merchant.

Mrs Thorold reached into her pocket and retrieved something small and gleaming: a gold watch. “I shall not explain the details in this moment. Suffice it to say, I have a plan thoroughly worked out, and every confidence that it will succeed. I know what I want to take, where it is, how securely it is guarded and its value as a stolen object without provenance. By sunrise, I shall be halfway across the Channel. And I shall be a free woman at last.” She paused. “The question is, Angelica Maria Thorold, will you also be free?”

Angelica’s silence was maddeningly ambiguous. Was she thunderstruck? Calculating? Tempted? Appalled? Mary scarcely dared breathe as she awaited a response.

Eventually, Angelica spoke coolly and quietly. “If you are asking for my help, Mamma, I shall need to know more about your plans. I cannot possibly agree to help you blindly.”

“I do not require help, child; I am entirely prepared to act alone. Indeed, I had expected to do so, until we so fortuitously met again. But as your mother, and a lady who understands the complexities of being alone in the world, I am offering you an opportunity. A business venture. A partnership, if you will.”

“Thorold and Daughter, instead of Thorold and Son?”

“Just so.” A brief pause. Then, “I need hardly enumerate the advantages to you, but perhaps I shall, in any case. An assured income, much larger than the present pittance you earn by teaching music. Independence in the world. An alternative to the stage, should you decide that such a life is not for you.”

“That is all very tempting,” said Angelica slowly, “but you omit what would be, for me, the greatest incentive.”

“And what is that?” Mrs Thorold sounded genuinely curious.

“Family. Not being entirely alone in the world.”