Shadow of the Past (16 page)

We pushed our way through the crush in the foyer. It was thronged with brightly garbed and painted Cyprians all plying their trade. Taking Edmund’s arm, I hurried us through.

‘You are turned Puritan?’ he asked with a smile.

‘I am indeed filled with disgust.’ And who would not be, at the lewd propositions even now being whispered in my ear?

‘With the men who use such women or the women themselves?’ His voice was sterner.

‘What woman can stoop so low as to sell her body?’ I demanded.

‘Those with no alternative.’

‘Alternative? Surely there must be alternatives? Think of the good women of our village, toiling night and day to keep their families together. Would
they
ever stoop to such a trade?’

‘If their husbands had left the land and come to the city in search of a decent wage – what would the women do then? Oh, they can become servants, milliners, I grant you. But say their men die, or are seized by press gangs, or simply disappear? How is such a woman to survive?’

‘There is always poor relief…the workhouse…’ I blustered.

‘Tobias, you are truly scraping the barrel of argument. Do not our very laws begrudge poor relief, despatching applicants back to their home parish? And the workhouses? Why, you know how desperate your own flock are to escape such a fate.’

‘Indeed…’ I bit my lip. ‘I am still repelled by the very notion of that most pure of God’s creatures, a woman, should…’

‘Pure? Consider what harm a woman is capable of, Tobias. We have seen it in our own village. I grant you that such a trade is repellent, as vile as slavery. But to every trade there are two partners, the seller and the buyer. Look at those bucks ogling the women, just as if they were so many paintings in a gallery. And I tell you, they would look after a painting better. Not discard it after looking at it.’

‘I feel soiled in their very presence, Edmund. Both buyers’ and sellers’. Let us quit the place now.’

I waited for the ubiquitous Wilfred, now unaccountably grand in a butler’s tail-coat two sizes too large for him, to serve us Madeira in the yellow saloon and withdraw. Encouraging smells had wafted from behind the green baize door to welcome us on our return. The very moment we rang, supper would be served in the family dining room, Wilfred declared as he bowed himself out.

‘It seems to me,’ I began nervously, aware that my achievements in the capital had not been great, ‘that there is still something you and I – more particularly I – might do to discover information about Mr Chamberlain, and possibly even the Larwoods.’ Encouraged by Hansard’s bright questioning look, I continued. ‘If I returned to Hans Crescent in what is now my proper attire, I could present myself as what I am – a country clergyman eager to trace the family for – some purpose or other,’ I concluded lamely.

‘You do not think that anyone saw you approaching the house and being turned away?’

‘They might have seen an aspiring country sprig, with a
particular brilliance to his boots, but they surely would not associate him with me. I do not think the Larwoods would have time to make their escape and communicate the reason to all and sundry. Indeed, they would want to conceal any motive for their flight.’

‘And you think that as long as you are rustic in your choice of footwear and clerical in your garb, you might cajole information from unwary householders or their garrulous servants. And what would your pretext be?’

‘That is something we could perhaps discuss over supper. I fear that that blow sadly addled my brain, Edmund, but perhaps some of Mrs Tilbury’s beef pudding will restore it.’

In the end, Edmund and I decided that when I questioned the Larwoods’ neighbours or their servants, the nature of my search would be vague, limited to such discreet hints as ‘a family affair’. Let my interlocutors interpret that how they would. Initially I would go not to front doors, with knockers gleaming or otherwise, but to the servants’ entrance, as befitted a humble parson.

Edmund, meanwhile, would lurk in a hack just down the street, reading a long letter handed to him as we left the house. It was from Mrs Hansard. It seemed that she had promised to write every day, giving every domestic detail. Since there was no one to frank her mail, I imagined that this would prove an expensive separation, even though she had crossed and recrossed the lines.

We agreed that if I did not emerge after what he thought a reasonable interval, he would come in search of me. With his fighting prowess, not to mention his repellent-looking cudgel, I could think of no more efficient guardian angel.

My first visit, earlier than it would be acceptable to pay
morning calls to the householders themselves, was to the left of the Larwoods’ house. My informants, a blowsy cook and insinuating manservant, would have worried their employers by their general garrulity, which ate into their time and mine, but brought me no nearer details of the Larwood household. I signified to Edmund that I had abandoned that house, and would move to the neighbour on the right-hand side. These servants were clearly too harassed to indulge in the sort of general conversation likely to lead tactfully to the information I sought. In fact, it was only when I reached the house three doors further down that I struck gold in the form of the nursery maid, a girl of about twelve, applying diminutive pinafores to the washboard.

‘’Tis strange you should be asking about them, your honour, because their little Miss Emma is bosom bows with our Miss Augusta.’ She paused in her labour, wiping her reddened hands on her apron. ‘According to Nurse – Nurse Stoughton, that is – they’re like sisters. Stands to reason, being the same age and both on their own.’ She dropped her voice. ‘Master Frederick was taken from us last year by the putrid throat and Miss Thomasina called to the angels with measles.’

Rigidly suppressing my unholy imagination, I made suitable noises of sympathy. ‘Does Miss Emma have no brothers or sisters?’

‘No. And no sign of any, either, if you take my meaning.’

‘And what sort of a child is Miss Emma?’

‘Like Miss Augusta – awake on every suit, and as pretty as paint.’

I nodded, hoping she would tell me something I didn’t know. ‘Like her parents, Miss – er…?’ I asked vaguely.

‘Betty. Betty Ewers at your service.’ She dropped a curtsy,
continuing as if there had been no interruption, ‘Lord bless you, no. Two carrot-heads, they are. Auburn, I
should
say. And she as dark as the devil.’

Would Edmund deduce anything from that?

‘Except there isn’t anything impish about her,’ she continued. ‘Quite the little angel, she is.’

Since what she said accorded with my brief impression, I smiled encouragingly. ‘But little children are often naughty – in their way.’

‘Not Miss Emma. Her nurse – Miss Fowler, that is – says she knew her letters and her numbers before you could credit it. And she’ll sing a little hymn as sweet as a bird.’

‘Did Nurse Fowler leave with the family?’

‘Now that I don’t know. She may have, because I’ve not seen her since, but that doesn’t mean anything, does it? They cast you off, these people, leaving you to find another position as if they grew on trees,’ she said with the bitter wisdom of one twice her age.

‘Miss Betty, would Nurse Stoughton know where Nurse Fowler’s family might live?’ I chinked a couple of coins encouragingly.

‘I could go and ask her, your honour.’

The coins slipped from my hand into hers. She ran off like the wind.

Nurse Stoughton was an altogether more stately lady of forty summers and few teeth, greeting me with a stiff bob and something of a sniff. It was hard to tell whether she considered she was rising in the world or falling, when she took a position with a family in a street like this. It was a nuance that dear Mrs Hansard would have discovered in a minute, but I was not sufficiently attuned to. It was clear that
she priced my garments and found them and my boots, on which her gaze lingered, authentically shabby.

‘Nurse Stoughton, it is imperative that I speak to Mr and Mrs Larwood. It is possible that Nurse Fowler may still be with them. But if she is not, she may know their whereabouts. Do you have her address?’ I floundered in the face of her silence.

She smiled grimly. ‘She is the daughter of a vicar like yourself, sir, up in Northumberland, so it would trouble you to speak to her urgently if she were up there.’

‘Indeed it would.’ I tried the smile with which I was used to charm older ladies. ‘So it is not her family’s address that I need, but her employers’ – assuming that she is still with them.’

‘I know not any reason why she should not be. She is devoted to Miss Emma and she to her.’

‘Has she been with the family long?’

‘As long as I have been with Miss Augusta, give or take – I was with Madam when she gave birth,’ she added proudly.

‘And was Miss Fowler able to help at Miss Emma’s delivery?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘As to that, I think not. Miss Emma was born at Mr Larwood’s family home, she said; she must have been about three months old when they moved here.’

I knew not why, but I sensed she had said something of importance. ‘Is it possible that you know where that place might be? As I told you, it is vital that I speak with them.’

She was about to speak but stopped abruptly. ‘I think you ought to ask the master about that,’ she said at last.

‘And is he at home?’

‘At work.’

‘His wife? I must impress on you that this is of the utmost urgency.’ A coin found its way from my hand to hers.

‘Indisposed.’ She was ready to go and close the door. But by some means she must have divined the value of the coin and she thawed enough to say, ‘He works in the City, sir. At a big bank near Charing Cross.’

‘At Drummond’s?’ My heart lifted.

‘That may be the name.’ She made to return to the house.

‘One last thing, Nurse Stoughton – what is your master’s name?’ I allowed myself to offer her what I was beginning to think of as my old ladies’ smile. ‘I can scarce present myself at the bank and ask for a gentleman living in Hans Crescent, can I?’

She responded with an indulgent sigh. ‘That you couldn’t, Parson. Ask for Mr Thorpe. Mr Edwin Thorpe.’

‘My father has banked with old Mr Drummond since before I was in short coats,’ I explained to Edmund, as I came running back to the hackney carriage and urging the jarvey to spring the horses. With persuasion, they managed a desultory trot. ‘He will have no objection to my speaking to his employee, I am sure. At last we will have a reliable informant!’

‘Whom the Runners may already have questioned. But I have news for you – this mass of verbiage was not, it seems, simple gossip.’ He opened Mrs Hansard’s letter and tapped it. ‘Oh, my dearest wife, why did you not tell us this in your very first paragraph?’ he apostrophised her in what sounded like exasperation.

‘Tell us what?’ I prompted. It was the first time I had ever detected a note of criticism of his wife.

‘That they found another secret drawer in the governess’s
chest. This one contained a lock of hair, folded into paper. Blond – probably baby hair.’

I covered my face in an attempt to concentrate. ‘So we are looking for a blond child in the Chamberlain household?’

He shook his head. ‘If only nature were as straightforward as that. I have seen babies with hair so fair as to be white growing up into people as dark as our late friend. But we know – we
suspect
– a child to be involved.’

‘The Larwoods’ child was dark,’ I mused. ‘And, according to the servant I spoke to, the father as ginger as the mother.’

‘Really! So the child is at very least a sport of nature. It would be interesting to meet this little family. Now, there is something else concealed in this mess of crossed lines.’ He turned the pages in irritation.

‘It could be that she was being cautious,’ I said. ‘Anyone rapidly scanning the letter might miss the information.’

‘Exactly. But this was negative, not positive information. It was that Lady Bramhall’s steward has been unable to lay his hands on the papers pertaining to Miss Southey’s appointment. It seems he claims not to have access to her private papers. So now – now! – she is sending him express authority to search her escritoire. God knows when we shall have everything made clear…Ah, is this Drummond’s?’

It was – but there was such a press of carriages it was minutes before we could be set down outside the august premises, minutes that clearly irked my friend. ‘All this rainbow chasing, Tobias, when we both have our daily work to do.’

But he was happier when we were shown straight into Mr Drummond’s sanctum.

‘Good heavens, ’tis Master Toby.’ Mr Drummond greeted
me warmly, as if it were only last week that he had found sugar plums for me in the depths of his great safe. ‘I beg your pardon: I
should
say—’

‘You
could
call me Parson Campion,’ I said, wringing his hand. ‘But I would be just as happy with Master Toby.’

He looked my up and down in that familiar appraising way. ‘So the story is correct, that you have become naught but a country vicar.’

Naught
! ‘I did what I had to do,’ I said mildly, but, I hoped, firmly.

‘A life of poverty, when as a lad you liked nothing better than sitting on my lap making heaps of golden guineas into shining little towers…Well, well.’ He turned belatedly to Dr Hansard, and I effected introductions, soon sealed with a glass of fine sherry and some excellent biscuits.

It was a matter of minutes before Mr Edwin Thorpe entered Mr Drummond’s office, a cautious but not quite apprehensive expression on his face. Without Mr Drummond’s assurance that we were eminently respectable, and asking for the best of motives, he was able to supply us with the ghost of an address.

‘All I know is that they have spent holidays at a farm in Devon. Between Newton Abbot and Dawlish, I think. He has mentioned both towns. I am sorry that I cannot be more precise, gentlemen,’ he said with a bow and half an eye on his employer, ‘but the address of a friend’s parents-in-law is not something one normally requires.’

‘You have been more than helpful,’ I declared, with more enthusiasm than I truly felt.

There was a general shaking of hands before we quit the building.

‘Somewhere near Teignmouth,’ Hansard mused as we strode to the hack still waiting for us. ‘Well, for my part, Tobias, I say we inform the Runners of the Larwoods’ possible whereabouts and leave them to do their work. We cannot be haring hither and there when it is just as likely that the Larwoods are in Tunbridge Wells or in Timbuktu. To Berkeley Square, if you please.’

The jarvey nodded, his eyebrows saying quite clearly that if these eccentric countrymen wished to be ferried haphazardly about the capital it was none of his business – so long as they came up with the dibs. His horses returned to what I suspected was their usual dawdle.

I could not argue. My friend was right. Furthermore, if we left London, we would leave Jem alone, an idea quite insupportable. Pray God we would soon have news from him, and we could all return to Warwickshire together. From the way my dear friend kept fingering the letter in his pocket, it could not come too soon.

Mrs Tilbury had provided a light nuncheon in the morning room, Wilfred announced as he took our hats. Since I knew that the simple declaration carried a great deal of import, I thanked him and declared that we would take sherry beforehand in my room.

‘It seems we have but just eaten,’ Hansard grumbled as he joined me there a few minutes later. ‘Thank you, Wilfred.’ He gestured with his glass.

‘Wilfred knows the amount of effort it has cost Mrs Tilbury – and possibly Wilfred himself – to set the room in order,’ I declared, also taking a glass. I looked at the young man enquiringly.

‘Indeed, Master Tobias, she has set on three extra servants to help her. That chandelier’s come up something lovely, though I says it as shouldn’t.’

‘So you assisted too? Thank you very much.’

He bowed low. ‘Not a sign of a Holland cover will you find, nor any drugget on the carpet. She’s done you and the doctor proud, sir. And you’ll find the Crown Derby set and the Stourbridge crystal on the table, sir.’

‘Pray tell her that we are on our way down.’

I waited until he had bowed himself out. ‘And now we must prove good trenchermen indeed,’ I said. ‘The poor lady is all but blind, Edmund, and this represents effort and devotion in equal measure.’

‘Blind? The least I can do by way of thanks is to look at her eyes, then. I know a very good man in London, Tobias—’

‘I am glad of it. My mother has been pressing her this age to consult someone. We must see if your charm will do the trick.’

My ribs veritably squeaking after the repast we had consumed in the august setting in which dear Tilly had placed us, I sat back with the newspaper to savour a last glass of wine alone as Edmund disappeared backstairs to work his magic on her, preferring to do it in private, he said. I had hardly perused more than the first pages of the
Morning Post
, however, when an urgent peal of the bell made itself heard, as did Wilfred’s scurrying feet.

I declare I was already on my feet, my hand held out, when, after a most perfunctory tap, he came in with a salver bearing a folded, unsealed note.

You wreaker
, it declared.

I threw it swiftly on the fire – not even Edmund would ever know Jem’s problems with Greek – and rang the bell, Wilfred returning in an instant, as if he had been hovering outside the door for such a summons.

‘Summon a hack, please, Wilfred. I will find Dr Hansard myself.’