The peace was shattered not many minutes later by heels clicking sharply on the slate floor and an impatient rustle of taffeta. A breeze burst over me as a lady stormed into the servants’ hall and leaned her fists on the tabletop in a very unladylike manner.
She had a fine-boned face and very fair hair, lovely if one enjoys the pale-skinned, aristocratic version of beauty. Her high-necked and long-sleeved gown was deep gray with black soutache trim—she wore mourning for her sister, recently deceased.
I jumped to my feet. She straightened as I did so, a frown slanting her brows, her light blue eyes filled with agitation.
“It is important, Mrs. H.,” Lady Cynthia said. “I need your help. Clementina’s going out of her head with worry.”
I had no idea who Clementina was—I assumed one of Lady Cynthia’s vast acquaintance.
“I beg your pardon, my lady. What has happened?”
“She was here tonight, very upset.” Cynthia waved impatiently at the chairs. “Oh, do let us sit down. Davis, bring me tea to steady my nerves, there’s a good chap.”
Davis, who’d followed Lady Cynthia down, stuck his nose in the air at being ordered about like a footman and said a haughty, “Yes, my lady.” He glided out to shout into the kitchen for someone to make a pot of tea for her ladyship and be quick about it.
I had not seen much of Lady Cynthia since Lord Rankin had retreated to his country estate to console himself. He’d allowed Lady Cynthia to remain living in his London house, which revealed a kindness in him that surprised me. Lady Cynthia had no money of her own, as I’ve mentioned, and not much choice of where to go. Her parents, the Earl and Countess of Clifford, lived in impoverished isolation in Hertfordshire, and I knew Cynthia had no desire to return to them.
An unmarried lady could not live alone without scandal, however, so Cynthia’s aunt and uncle—the respectable Mr. Neville Bywater, younger brother to Cynthia’s mother, and his wife, Isobel—had moved into Lord Rankin’s house to look after her. Her aunt was content to put her feet up and enjoy the luxurious house in Mount Street while her husband went off to work in the City. The Bywaters were not poor, but they were careful, willing to save money by taking Lord Rankin’s free room and board.
“Clemmie’s married to a baronet,” Cynthia said as soon as she and I sat down. “He is appallingly rich and has priceless artwork hanging on his walls. That is, he did—that artwork has started to go missing, whole pictures gone. Sir Evan Bloody Godfrey is blaming Clemmie.”
I blinked. “Why should he? It seems a bizarre assumption to make.”
“Because Clemmie is always up to her ears in debt. She plays cards—badly—and wagers too much, and she likes the occasional flutter on the horses. As a result, creditors visit her husband. Before this, he’d pay up like a lamb, but a few months ago, he suddenly announced that enough was enough. He forbade Clemmie to wager ever again, but of course, Clemmie couldn’t help herself.”
“Her husband believes she sold the paintings to pay the debts,” I finished as Sara scurried in with tea on a tray and set it carefully on the table. She curtsied, waited for any further instruction from Cynthia, then faded away when Cynthia dismissed her.
I reached for the teapot and poured out a steaming cup of fragrant tea for Lady Cynthia then topped up my empty teacup. The scent of oolong, my favorite, came to me.
“Exactly, Mrs. H. But Clemmie swears it isn’t true. She says she has no idea how she’d sell the paintings even if she did take them, and I believe her. Clemmie is an innocent soul.” Cynthia sighed, running her finger around the rim of her teacup. “She says there’s been no sign of a break-in or burglary. The paintings are simply there in the evening, gone the next morning.”
Interesting. The problem piqued my exhausted brain. However, I did not allow myself to speculate too deeply. Simple explanations are usually the wisest ones—a person can complicate a straightforward situation with unnecessary dramatics and end up in a complete mess.
“Perhaps an enterprising butler is having the paintings cleaned,” I suggested. “I understand old paintings can acquire quite a bit of grime, especially in London.”
Cynthia waved her long-fingered hand. “I thought of that, but Clemmie swears she’s questioned the staff and none have touched them. They rather dote on her, so I’m sure they would tell if they knew anything.”
“Hm.” Either one of the servants was lying quite fervently, or someone had managed to creep into the baronet’s house in the middle of the night and silently rob it. I tried to picture a man walking in, taking a painting from the wall, and walking out again with it under his arm, frame and all, but I could not. London houses had servants roaming them all hours of the day and night, and he’d be spotted.
“You are intrigued,” Cynthia said in triumph. “I see the sparkle in your eyes.”
“I admit, it is odd,” I answered with caution. Lady Cynthia was apt to throw herself into things rather recklessly. “Though I am certain there will be a clear explanation.”
“Clemmie will be happy with any explanation. The silly cow is devastated her husband doesn’t believe her, terrified he’ll cut her off without a shilling. She wants to find the culprit and present him to the baronet on a platter.”
“If she finds the culprit, she should summon the police,” I said severely. “Does she mean to catch the burglar herself, tie him up, and wait for her husband to come home?”
“Ha. Sir Evan is a high-handed, dried-up stick, but I don’t want him putting it about that Clemmie is stealing from him. The only reason he doesn’t have her up before a magistrate is that he’d die of shame.” Lady Cynthia clattered down her teacup and leaned to me. “Say you’ll help, Mrs. H. I’d bribe you with extra wages, but Rankin holds the purse strings and my aunt and uncle are parsimonious.” She brightened. “But Clemmie can reward you. Her husband might embrace you and give you a heady remuneration if you found his precious paintings. He is oozing with wealth. Has a roomful of art and antiquities from all over the world—can’t think why this burglar is not touching that.”
Even more interesting.
I was comfortable with my salary, as Lord Rankin paid what was fair for a cook of my abilities and experience. The thought of extra was always welcome, of course—something to put by for my daughter—but that was not why I nodded in agreement. The puzzle did make me curious. Besides, looking for missing paintings seemed far less dangerous than hunting murderers or chasing Fenians.
Sometimes I can be a foolishly confident woman.
* * *
* * *
Cynthia fixed our date to meet with Clementina the day after tomorrow. Not tomorrow, I said firmly, as it was Thursday, my day out. No one, not even a wealthy baron with missing paintings—not the Queen herself—would sway me from taking my day.
Cynthia looked annoyed she’d have to wait, but she knew I was immovable. We’d go Friday after breakfast, we agreed, then she left me. She was going out, Cynthia said as she went, sending me a dark look.
I smothered a sigh. She meant she would be donning gentleman’s attire and meeting her lady friends who enjoyed dressing thus. They’d lark about and try to gain admission to seedy clubs where gentlemen slummed. I worried when Cynthia did this, certain one night her uncle would have to retrieve her from some filthy jail, her complete ruin ensured.
I knew Cynthia would not be dissuaded—I had tried to reason with her before. The look she gave me also meant I should see that the scullery door was kept unbolted for her. She had a key to the house’s doors, but we drew a bar across the back and front ones after midnight if no one was out, which meant she’d be unable to get in without rousing the house and revealing her truancy to her aunt and uncle. They were amiable people but uncomfortable with Cynthia’s wild streak.
Cynthia’s mother and father—especially her father—had been wild in their day as well. Still were, from all accounts, though Cyn
thia’s mother had become a near recluse after Cynthia’s brother had shot himself years ago.
Mr. Bywater, Cynthia’s uncle, seemed to have inherited everything staid in the family. He believed Cynthia should find a husband who would settle her down—his idea was that having a child or two would calm her even more. Mr. Bywater enjoyed inviting eligible young gentlemen to the house, hoping Cynthia would fall madly in love with one of them and accept his inevitable proposal.
Hence the supper party tonight, and Cynthia’s rebellion of the moment.
I promised to aid in her deception, and we parted ways.
* * *
* * *
Cynthia returned safely in the wee hours and crept off to bed. Or so Sara assured me in the morning. I fixed a full breakfast for the household, then put aside enough food for a luncheon for the staff and family. I would be back in time to make supper.
As I prepared the repast I’d leave behind, Mr. Davis, as usual, found time to sit in his shirtsleeves at my table and read bits out of his newspaper to me.
Today it was the French foray into the lands of the Bey of Tunis. Apparently, Tunisian tribesmen there had been crossing into Algeria, a French colony, and pillaging as they saw fit, and the French were retaliating. Mr. Davis read along through the details of the French attack, when he paused and looked up.
“Oh, by the bye, I saw that chap who worked here a few months ago—what was his name? Daniel—that was it. Daniel McAdam. In a pawnbrokers on the Strand, of all places.” He shook his head. “Dear, dear, how the mighty have fallen.”
2
My knife slipped from the mushrooms I was chopping. I caught myself and continued slicing, only missing one stroke. “Oh?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could.
“Yes, indeed,” Mr. Davis said. “I glanced in when I walked past, and there he was behind the counter, cool as you please, selling things to punters. I am glad he found employment, but in a run-down pawnbrokers? The gentlemen inside were not the most salubrious customers, I must say.”
I swallowed and made myself shove the mushrooms aside, moving an onion into their place. “We all have to make a living, Mr. Davis.”
Mr. Davis moved the paper to peer at me. “Didn’t he used to be sweet on you, Mrs. Holloway? As I said at the time, you can do much better.”
“I do not wish to do better, Mr. Davis.” I sliced the onion in half with vigor. “That is, I am not looking for a man to marry.” I made quick slices in the half onion up to its root end, then turned my knife horizontally and slid it through what I already cut. I turned the onion around again and chopped at right angles to my first cuts. Pieces of onion fell away in a small, perfect dice, and my eyes began to water.
“Oh no? So every Thursday, you are not slipping out to meet a beau?” Mr. Davis’s eyes twinkled, his curiosity alight.
I had no intention of telling the biggest gossip in London where I went on my days out. I gave him a frosty look. “Indeed no. I visit friends, have a healthy walk, take in sights, and try to improve my mind.”
“I take your meaning, Mrs. H.” Mr. Davis returned to his paper without offense. “None of my business.”
He thought I lied. I did, but only a little.
As Mr. Davis continued to read, I finished my chopping, sautéed the mushrooms and onions, and poured plenty of hot stock into the pan on top of them along with a chunk of ham. “That will simmer nicely all morning and be a hearty soup for your dinner,” I said to Mr. Davis. “Tell Sara to put the greens in at the very last moment, or they’ll be bitter. I have them washed and crisped in the larder.”
“Sara don’t want to be a kitchen maid, you know,” Mr. Davis said, turning a page.
“Then we had better hope the agency sends us another one. Good morning, Mr. Davis.”
I removed my pinafore and cap and climbed the back stairs to my chamber, where I donned my best dress and hat, setting the black straw with dark feathers and ribbon on my brown hair.
Taking up my gloves, I marched down the six flights of stairs and out of the house, determinedly not speaking to any of the staff I passed on my way—I refused to miss a moment of my precious day with my daughter. I walked through the kitchen, noting that Mr. Davis had removed himself, and out the scullery door and up the steps to the street.
May had crept into the city, turning it gloriously warm without being too hot. The sticky heat would come later, when the social season was over, and the fortunate retreated to the country. Lady Cynthia had not yet revealed her plans for the warmer months, and I had no idea whether I’d stay on in the town house or follow her and the Bywaters to a summer home. Or perhaps I’d have to find a new place altogether. I hoped not, as I was well set up in the Mount Street house and had no wish to move. But domestics cannot always count on their ladies and gentlemen to be dependable.
I pushed that worry aside as I traveled out of Mayfair on a crowded omnibus, rolling slowly along Piccadilly past the houses of the very rich, then changed to another omnibus to travel the Haymarket and pass Trafalgar Square to the Strand.
I peered out the window as we went along the Strand, wondering about Mr. Davis’s story of Daniel. Had he been mistaken? What on earth would Daniel be doing working at a pawnbrokers?
Perhaps Daniel had simply needed the post. He arbitrarily seemed to have much money or none at all, and he changed his guise and his employment on a whim.
I knew there must be more to it. Daniel had something to do with the police, but I did not know what—and he had not chosen to share the details of his life with me. When last we’d spoken, he softening me with a kiss or two, he promised one day he’d tell me all. That day had not yet manifested, and as I say, I’d not seen him for some time.
I ought to forget about him. No woman needs a gentleman who pops in and out like a jackrabbit, and transforms himself from deliveryman to City gent to pawnbroker’s assistant to commander of a troop of constables at the drop of a hat. My existence had been calm until Mr. McAdam had walked into it.
That was rubbish, and I knew it. I’d had plenty of drama in my life before I’d met Daniel. One reason I guarded my days out like a lion is that it gave me time to visit the person who’d been the product of the drama. Grace was the one constant in my world, the goodness that had come of grief.
No one in the Mount Street house, not even Lady Cynthia or Mr. Davis, knew I had a daughter, who was now ten years old. I had not exactly been married at the time I’d borne her—a fact unknown to me until too late—and an unmarried woman with a child can hardly hope to work in a respectable household. Holloway was my maiden name, which I’d resumed when I’d learned my so-called husband had already been married to someone else before he’d beguiled me into a church. I was Mrs. Holloway because all cooks and housekeepers were “Mrs.” regardless of whether they were married. It was a mark of respect, just as all butlers and valets were “Mr.” to the other servants.
Respectable Mrs. Holloway now rode through Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill and around the majestic bulk of St. Paul’s. It was a beautiful cathedral, so reverent I knew it would stand forever. I descended not far from there, and in a small lane off Cheapside, I knocked on the door of a modest house where my friends Joanna and Sam Millburn lived. They were dear, kind people, and had the keeping of my daughter. Though they had four children themselves, they had brought her into their fold, embracing her as they would one of their own. Grace had grown up with their children and looked upon them as true brothers and sisters.
I heard Grace’s voice rise in excitement, and I went weak with the joy of it. Once my arms were around her, and we were hugging as though we hadn’t seen each other in months, my troubles fell away. They always did, which was why I’d fight tooth and nail to guard my time with her. My Grace, my daughter, my haven.
* * *
* * *
Today Grace and I visited the Tower of London, paying our fee and gawping at the medie
val rooms and beauty of the crown jewels, and listening to a lecturer talk about the ghosts. Grace shrank close to me, and we kept a sharp eye out for ghosts in the shadows, but we saw none. I never do.
We stopped on the way home for tea, always our treat. We had too many cakes, which would make Joanna unhappy, but Grace deserved a bit of naughtiness. We crammed the sweet tea cakes and scones into our mouths, giggling like mad.
It was four in the afternoon when I returned Grace to the Millburns and said good-bye. My heart was heavy, as always at the end of our day. I woke every Thursday with a lightness in my limbs and ended it already wishing away the days until Monday, when I could see her again.
My savings were meager but growing, put aside for the time I’d retire from service and have Grace live with me. Perhaps I’d open a tea shop, where I’d make the very best pastries in London, and Grace would do her lessons in the back room while I worked.
The vision was so heady, and so real, that I nearly walked in front of a tram heading its way down the Strand.
I jumped out of its path, surprised I was next to the little church of St. Clement Danes—I’d come that far without noticing, my mind in the clouds.
I brought my thoughts firmly to earth and walked briskly along, keeping well away from the wheeled traffic. I studied the shop fronts as I went—which of these was the pawnbrokers where Mr. Davis had seen Daniel?
Whenever I spotted the sign of three golden balls dangling above a door, I’d enter the shop, my heart thumping. I pretended to browse the goods for sale while I glanced about for Daniel, but I saw him in none of them.
Not until I was on the far west end of the Strand, just before Charing Cross Station, did I find the correct shop. This one was seedy indeed, its small windows covered with grime, the three balls above its door tarnished and blackened with soot.