The Sleeping Partner (11 page)

The look of horror on Sir Adam’s face was very rewarding, but it was too easy to tease him. She steered him around a knot of people trying to extract a very fat woman from a carriage and resolved to be more conciliatory.

“When did you marry?” she asked.

“Trafalgar year. You would have been—wherever you were—”

“In 1805? In Amsterdam.”

“I was in London for the season, met Lady Brereton—Miss Thorpe, she was—at Almack’s.”

“My father must have been beside himself with joy. How did you marry so well?”

“How did I—what do you mean? Why should I not marry well?”

“One of the last things Father said to me was that I had ruined your chance of marriage with a respectable woman. Obviously he was pessimistic.”

“It made the matter more difficult—I wanted to tell Lyne that you were dead—I was afraid to lose Clarissa. But Father insisted we reveal it all, and Lyne—it was not what he liked, how could he? But in the end, when Father assured him that you were as good as dead—”

“He was comforted?”

Sir Adam was impervious to irony. “Reassured. And he could see that our attachment was very strong.”

“Well, I congratulate you, Adam. I like her.”

Sir Adam’s expression softened. “She is the dearest girl—”

For a moment Miss Tolerance felt only pleasure in her brother’s happiness. “I am very glad for you, Adam.” She patted his arm.

This moment of genuine family feeling seemed to be all Sir Adam could tolerate. He hurried them across the street.

“Why
aren’t
you dead?” he asked. “And Connell, how did he die? In the war?”

“Nothing so romantic. He had a feverish cold that went to his chest. It killed him. And I lived.” Miss Tolerance had no intention of edifying her brother with the grief and difficulty that had surrounded her return to England.

“And you are here.”

“I am. And I had as well tell you, Adam, that I intend to help your sister-at-law if I can.”

“Yes, I see that,” Sir Adam agreed. “Lyne is not a cruel man, Sally.”

“Nor was our father a cruel man. But men who are not cruel can yet do cruel things. And stupid things. Look, we are nearly to Manchester Square and my aunt’s house. I shall not trouble you to walk me further.”

“Sally—” Sir Adam put his hand on Miss Tolerance’s and would not let her leave him. “You must promise me. You cannot tell. My wife is not like you. She has been sheltered, she is—what’s the word?”

“Fastidious?” Miss Tolerance did not think that Lady Brereton was so easily shocked as her husband believed, but he was very anxious. She took pity on him.

“Did I not say that discretion is one of my talents, Adam? What possible purpose would it serve for me to tell anyone of our relation?”

“You must promise,” Sir Adam urged.

“I will say nothing to your wife or her family. No one who does not now know we are related will have any word of it from me.”

Sir Adam released his sister’s arm. “Thank you. And you think Evie must be in London?”

A little startled by the shift in topic, Miss Tolerance nodded. “Well, as what I have so far learnt suggests that she is in the city, I choose to focus my investigation here.”

“You choose?”

“In my profession, Sir Adam, one frequently has recourse to instinct, and my instinct is that Miss Thorpe is still in London.”

“Oh, well, then.” Sir Adam bowed over Miss Tolerance’s hand. She was left with the impression that he had no particular faith in her instinct, but that as he would find his life very much easier if she should fail to find Miss Thorpe at all, it did not trouble him.

Chapter Six

It is not to be supposed that an unexpected reunion with her brother left Miss Tolerance unmoved. However, she had work to do. She turned south to Wigmore Street, hailed a hackney coach, and gave orders for Pitfield Street, where she hoped to find Mr. John Thorpe. As the carriage moved through the congested streets, she considered if her interview at Lord Lyne’s house had added to her investigation. She had already satisfied herself as to Evadne Thorpe’s identity. She had met Lord Lyne and Mr. Henry Thorpe; Lyne she discounted, as he would do nothing to assist in her investigation. But Henry Thorpe interested her: a dissolute brother with unsavory friends was worth at least a second glance.

Miss Tolerance thought it unlikely that Lady Brereton could arrange for her to interview the servants in Lord Lyne’s house, and yet that was her chiefest desire. Butlers and housemaids have useful opinions of their employers’ families, and the most reliable intelligence regarding their movements. The governess Miss Nottingale might have an idea of Evadne Thorpe’s admirer, but the man who opened the door and delivered a note upon a tray, or the maid who laced the girl into her gown and listened to her chatter, was likely to be more broadly informed. She must hope that Mr. John Thorpe would have something useful to add beyond the governess’s direction.

When the carriage arrived in Pitfield Street Miss Tolerance stepped down, ready to take her inquiry where she could. It was a sullen, dreary neighborhood; to her left a crowd of grimy, tired men waited on the step of a gin-shop; there was not enough room for them all inside. Before her she saw a second-hand clothes shop and a pie cook and a cobbler. Most of the other buildings were blank-faced tenements. A ruddy, elderly woman in several layers of ragged clothing scurried by. From the corner of her eye Miss Tolerance saw a movement; almost without thought she seized the gnarled paw which had fastened itself around her reticule.

“Let go,” Miss Tolerance said firmly.

The old woman’s eyes rolled, showing a dramatic amount of white. Her face was weathered, the nose heavily veined. “What, miss? Don’ ‘urt me, miss, leggo, do!”

“Certainly, as soon as you let go of my bag.” Miss Tolerance tightened her grip on the crone’s wrist.

“I dunno whotcher talkin’ about,” the old woman whined. “You come up and grab me on the street, an—” she tugged again on Miss Tolerance’s reticule. Her brazenness was impressive. “Leggo! I wan’t doing noffin!”

A small crowd was gathering. Miss Tolerance took a step away from the old woman, holding her wrist at arm’s length so that the woman’s grasp on the small reticule, hanging from its sash at Miss Tolerance’s waist, was revealed to the crowd.

“Giver up, ‘Ettie,” a man in a butcher’s apron said. “The mort ain’t stupid.” He turned back toward the gin shop. The crowd dispersed, until only a pair of crossing-sweeps were left. With an expression of disgust the old woman released the reticule and pulled her hand out of Miss Tolerance’s grasp. She stood for a moment, rubbing her wrist and glaring.

“If you would like to earn some money honestly, tell me where the alms house is.” Miss Tolerance was mild.

“‘Ow much money?”

“As much as the question is worth. Or I could ask one of these gentlemen—” Miss Tolerance waved her hand at the sweeps who were watching impassively.

“Dahn the street, cross at corner, that big red ‘ouse.” The old woman pointed one impossibly crooked finger at the alms house; her other hand, palm up, she extended under Miss Tolerance’s nose. Her odor was not pleasant. Miss Tolerance put two coppers in the hand; the old woman scuttled off with her prize while the sweeps looked on.

“Good as a pantomime, ‘Ettie is,” one boy said to his mate.

“Or a ‘anging,” his friend agreed. The boys walked away, and Miss Tolerance followed Hettie’s direction to the brick house on the far corner of the street. It was a cheerless structure, one meant to have a shop on the ground floor and rooms above. A window intended to display the shop’s wares had been papered over to provide some privacy within; the only other sign of the place’s mission was a small wooden plaque on which was written:
Squale House for the Relief of the Poor.
Who was Squale? Miss Tolerance wondered. She knocked upon the door and waited.

When after several minutes no one had answered, Miss Tolerance tried the door, which opened to her touch. She stepped into a hallway with a series of doors on either side. Candles burned in sconces along the length; generations-worth of greasy soot stained the walls above them. A little girl of perhaps ten years skipped up to Miss Tolerance and examined her frankly.

“You ain’t come for bread, ‘ave you? You don’t look like you come for bread.”

Miss Tolerance agreed that she had not.

“You come for work?” The girl looked doubtful.

Miss Tolerance smiled. “Is this your job? To interview visitors?”

“I ‘elp Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Parkin,” the child said proudly. Her dress, while old and twice turned, was clean and neatly mended, and her face had been washed within recent memory. “I’m their ‘ssistant, Mr. Thorpe says so.” Mr. Thorpe was clearly a favorite.

“And you are surely a good one. I have come to speak to Mr. Thorpe, in fact.”

The child looked distressed. “Oh, no, miss. You can’t. ‘E ain’t awailable.”

“Gone home, has he?”

“No, miss. ‘E’s up t’stairs ‘elpin’ Matron pick nits.”

“Oh.” Miss Tolerance tried to imagine a son of Lord Lyne delousing the poor. “Do you think when he is done you might ask if he will speak to me? I am Miss Tolerance.”

The child giggled. “I’ll tell ‘im.” She dashed up the hall; the soles of her boots, displayed as she ran, were more hole than leather.

A few minutes later the girl appeared at the top of the stairs, pointed at Miss Tolerance, and skipped away again. A young man started down the stairs toward Miss Tolerance. He wore a leather apron over waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and carried a toddler in a grubby shift. His likeness to Evadne Thorpe was in his rounded chin and eyes, although his hair was not golden but a sober brown, and his complexion was pale rather than rosy. As they reached the ground floor the toddler in his arms reached up to grab his nose, so that his words were much compressed.

“How may I help you?”

“Mr. John Thorpe?” He nodded. “May I have a few minutes of speech with you, sir? ‘Tis regarding Miss Nottingale.”

Thorpe absently pulled the child’s hand from his nose. “Miss Nottingale? My sister’s governess?”

“Yes, sir. I need to find her. Lady Brereton suggested you would know where she would be.”

“Would I? Excuse my manners, Miss Tolerance; please come.” Thorpe turned, shifted the child to his other arm, and led the way down the hall. There was a murmur of voices from rooms on either side of the hallway; from one Miss Tolerance heard a woman’s voice reciting the alphabet and a man’s voice offering correction. Mr. Thorpe entered a large, whitewashed room that held several tables flanked by benches. He put the child on a table and casually kept a hand upon her to keep her from escaping. “May I ask what need you and my sister have of Miss Nottingale? Stay here, Lucy, your mother will be down in a moment,” he added to the toddler.

“Mam! Wan Mam!” The child began to whimper. Unflustered, Thorpe took out his pocket watch and held it before her until she left off crying with a hiccup and reached for the watch.

“You have much to do. I shall not keep you long, sir. Lady Brereton has retained me to find your sister—”

“To find Evadne? Do you think there is a chance of it?”

Miss Tolerance did not intend to explain herself to yet another member of this family. “‘I hope there is, sir. Lady Brereton thought you might know Miss Nottingale’s family—a brother in eastern London?”

“He is the vicar of Saint Hester’s in Bethnal Green.” Thorpe said. “But Miss Nottingale had nothing to do with—”

“Of course not. But she might know, without being aware of it, some clue which will help me find Miss Thorpe. Did you ever hear your sister speak of a young man, sir?”

The child Lucy stood on the table and grabbed a handful of Mr. Thorpe’s neckcloth, crushing the plain-tied knot and leaving a smudge on the cambric. Frowning, Thorpe pushed the child’s hand away.

“Stop, Lucy. I beg your pardon, Miss Tolerance.” He turned away and called out the open door. “Matron? Is Mrs. Petty done yet?”

Another man appeared in the door. He was considerably older than Thorpe, but had a youthful aspect with a high, intelligent brow, a sparse combing of brown hair, a long nose and a small, well-shaped mouth. “Matron sent me to tell you she is finished combing out Mrs. Petty’s hair and is rinsing it. And to fetch this lady away—” the man reached for the toddler. “Come along, Lucy. You will like to see your mother, eh?”

“Thank you, Godwin. Tell Matron to give them something to eat, will you?” Thorpe turned back to his visitor. “I beg your pardon. May I ask a question? Does my father know of this?” He scratched his head, then dropped his hand as if he had been burnt. “Dear me. Lucy’s mother—drunk
and
lousy. It has been an exciting afternoon.”

Miss Tolerance was not certain whether to laugh or commiserate. “Your father knows that I am working for Lady Brereton. I cannot tell you that he approves.”

Mr. Thorpe looked unhappy. “He and my sister had quarreled; I hope he has regretted his temper. You asked if Evie had an attachment to any young man? None that she ever told me of. My sister was—
is
—not lightminded. I do not mean she is above fun, but I should have said she was…virtuous. That sounds priggish, I suppose. I sound like a prelate when I should sound like a brother. But to run away, even if our father had been unkind to her, does not seem at all her sort of behavior. What will our father do if you find her?”

“He has not offered to do anything. Depending upon her circumstances and the circumstance of the man who—Lady Brereton and her husband have promised to make provision for her.” It felt curious to Miss Tolerance to speak of her brother so, to imagine him giving aid to some other Fallen girl.

Thorpe nodded as if to himself. “That is for the best. I wish I could give you more help, Miss Tolerance. My sister never spoke of any man to me.”

“And you never saw any callers?”

Mr. Thorpe shook his head. “Since I left the Navy I am barely suffered to visit in my father’s house; he hoped I would be another Nelson and I disappointed him. Bad enough that I wished to take orders, but I made matters worse by joining a Dissenting church.” He smiled sadly. “I was not in a position to see if anyone was dangling after Evie. But that is not what you came to learn.”