Samuel stirred, as if the flow of his meal had been cut off. She shifted him to the other side, briefly exposing herself to the young man, but he did not react—rather, he reacted internally, but seemed somehow both to notice his own discomfort and set it aside.
“Very well,” she said. “Since you know what we did, it will not surprise you to learn that he was looking to resume our partnership. However, as I said, he looked too decrepit. Even if I’d been willing, it would have taken a lot of time and effort to clean him up. In any event, I had recently made an arrangement—a financial arrangement—with a gentleman here in London.”
“You went to work for The Bishop.”
“You know him?” This young man looked nothing like The Bishop’s usual clientèle—far less a partner.
“We have met.” The flat statement did not suggest a social event.
“I was a bit desperate, back in April. Mr Bishop offered me a degree of protection—and one of his young charges as a partner. Since my father owed him a great deal of money—still does, so far as I know—I was not about to cross the man by going back into partnership with my father. So I sent Papa away.”
“What did he say when you did so?”
“Something about having another card to play. A friend, in Norfolk, I believe. Although I didn’t know my father had any actual friends. I presumed he had some kind of dodge in mind, although he said nothing about blackmail. I am sorry about your friend’s fa—”
“No!” Those icy grey eyes stifled her words before they were born. Samuel whimpered; this time, the young man took no note. “Do not bleat an apology at me. Blackmail is wickedness incarnate. It destroys entire families. And you were your father’s partner for too long to make any claim to innocence. Where would he go, if not to you?”
She could only shake her head. “I never had anything to do with blackmail. He may have, without me, but I always found the idea…unsavoury. At any rate, as I told you, my father has no friends that I know of. He and Mother lived in Cornwall before I was born. Falmouth, I believe.”
“His parents?”
“Died long ago. He was the only child.”
“Your mother’s people? From Scotland?”
“How did you know that?”
“She left traces in your voice. Edinburgh?”
He had to have found out somehow about her grandparents: no one had heard a trace of Scotland in her voice since she was ten years old. “Edinburgh, yes. But he wouldn’t go there. They’d have him arrested on sight. Or shot.”
One eyebrow quirked upward, and she explained, “My mother stole some jewellery—her own, mind, left to her by her grandmother—from her father’s safe. She had no money, and needed to get to Australia to join father.”
“She stole her inheritance to pay for a ticket?”
“Well, not quite. She knew if she did that, they’d just cash back her fare and stop her from going. So instead, she stole it in order to get transported.”
The other eyebrow climbed to match the first—then something astonishing: the young man laughed.
Even more amazing to Clarissa was the grin she found on her own face in response.
It was gone in a moment, but the air in the room had changed in some ineffable way—charged, almost, but with a kind of electricity she could not identify. Not attraction, and not quite fear, but somewhere between the two poles. The threat of it made her uneasy.
“Who are you?” she asked abruptly.
“A student, of life,” he answered. “A friend of Victor Trevor, whose bull terrier took a liking to my ankle one Sunday morning last winter. And, a person in a position to bring a killer to justice.”
“Do you have a name?”
“I do, although you will not have heard of it. The name is Holmes. Sherlock Holmes.”
The young man departed, the latch rattling behind him like a cell door. Clarissa did not for a moment imagine that she was rid of him. She sat with her arms around Samuel, taking comfort from this small mite in a way she’d not have expected before this morning.
Young Mr Holmes (strange Christian name, that: Sherlock?) was going to be a problem, of that she had no doubt. Had her father been here, she’d have poured every coin she had into his hands to send the old man far away, because he hadn’t a hope if that grey-eyed devil seized onto his trail. She had no wish to ally herself again with James Hudson—would not even have minded terribly if she did not set eyes on him again in this life—yet she did not wish him ill. His crimes had, for the most part, been committed on those whose own greed acted against them, and who in any event could afford the loss. He had been a reasonable enough father by his own lights. She would not want his fate hanging on her conscience.
She was still in the chair when Billy returned, filled with the virtues of responsibility. He set out upon a tale of crossing the city on his own, of his conversation with The Bishop, of…He stopped, head cocked to one side.
“Is summat wrong with yer?”
“No, Billy, I’m fine, although I am a bit tired from yesterday. How would you like to go to Kensington Gardens this afternoon? Not to work, just to hire a row-boat so you can paddle me and Samuel about?” The boy deserved a treat—and if Lord Hugh Edmunds happened to be there, strolling about with his bride, she would spit at his bloody feet.
Billy scowled in disapproval. “The Bishop said we’re behind.”
“Well, we can row first, then do a few Jobs.”
But at the Park entrance, Billy spotted a boy who had once worked for The Bishop, which made him too anxious for fun. So Clarissa agreed to work first, and they turned back to work their way up the Kensington Road.
After that, they hired the boat.
A row-boat on open water was an ideal place to detect someone watching them: as a passenger, Clarissa’s only task was to dandle her hand over the side and keep her eyes on the bank. She was looking for a young man with protruding cuffs—indeed, a tall young man in any shape—but saw no sign. There were a lot of children, but since Billy was occupied with keeping the ends of his oars in the water, his mind could not invent any more of The Bishop’s spies.
An hour later they turned in the boat, indulged in an ice cream, and made their way home, working four more Jobs on the way.
The Bishop would be happy with them, and Billy went to his cot that night both tired out and relieved.
Samuel slept relatively well, too. The child clearly liked days in the sun, which would be fine if this were Australia. In England, the mite was in for a hard life.
To make up for their Sunday leisure hours, Clarissa’s trio rose early. Monday mornings were lucrative, the streets and tram lines filled with men tired from their week-end excesses and often running late, so that a woman with a squalling child was even more of a distraction than usual. When the rain started again, tempers frayed and made things that much easier.
They worked their way through town and into the shops, where Clarissa had not ventured since the summer. She took care, wary of her lagging energies and attention, but found that the occasional stop for tea or a sandwich kept her from flagging too badly. Perhaps there would be life following childbirth after all.
Only once did Sunday’s visitor come to mind, when she noticed a slim back that reminded her of young Mr Holmes. She did not catch sight of his face, and the hat was of a different shape, but she cut the day short anyway. If she was imagining things, she must be tired.
So the week went: work when the streets were crowded, sleep when she could, find time for Billy’s schooling whenever Samuel permitted. There was satisfaction in the accumulated coins in the purse beneath her skirts—and considerable relief: The Bishop was not a patient man, and a month’s holiday for birthing a child was all he was prepared to accept.
The first Friday in October, the tenuous peace crashed at her feet like a dropped jug when the landlady’s clogs paused in the hallway and an envelope appeared beneath the door—slowly, it being unusually thick.
Billy leapt to s
natch it from the boards, trotting over with it to the window where Clarissa was sewing.
“Who is it from?” he demanded. “Can I read it? What does it say?”
Post was all but unheard of in their lives. In the four months they had lived in these rooms, she’d had precisely two pieces of mail, both from Alicia. The first was a telegram, to say that a “blessed event” was anticipated the following February. The second had come just the previous week, a polite and uninformative thank-you for Clarissa’s wedding present.
This was not from Alicia. Clarissa’s heart turned over when she saw the handwriting, and she snapped at Billy’s continuing demands. “This one’s none of your business. Go on with your maths problems.”
She ran her thumb under the glued flap. When she pulled out the letter, a flat blue shape the size of Samuel’s palm fell out of it. She picked it up: one of Pa’s thread decorations. She hadn’t seen one in years, but when she was little—back when Mama was still alive—his hands were often busy shaping bits of coloured string into pretty little objects. Rings or bracelets, pull knobs for switches, once a hat decoration. The most elaborate of these had been the doll he’d made before she was born, later claimed by Alicia—a doll that had more clothing than both girls together. This one was not a doll, but a bird.
She laid it on the windowsill and unfolded the letter.
Dearest Clarrie,
Your old man is in a spot of trouble. Nothing I cant get out of, but I need your help, just for a day or two. Then I’m away, out of your life for good if you want. If you don’t help me, it’ll be even odds if the Bishop or the police find me first. My life’s in your hands, girl. I didn’t come to see you, even though I been threw London, cause you said you didn’t want to see me. But Clarrie, this thing that’s come up, I need your help, need it bad, and then I swear on your sisters head, I’ll never ask for anything again. Honest, I wont need to—none of us will!
Come to the town of Fordingham, in Hampshire, as soon as ever you can. About a mile up the lane past the White Hart there’s a falling-down rock wall with a tree growing through it on the left, with a path you follow up into the trees. Up that path there’s a little house. I’ll wait for you there.
I made this for the baby, Clarrie, a bluebird to hang over the wee one’s cot. Somebody told me it was a sign of happiness. And happiness is whats coming, as soon as you come and just help me with this thing.
No date. No signature. No faint trace of apology or thanks. And he hadn’t come to see her because she’d have refused whatever this was, in person. It was harder to say no without a return address.
Bloody man. I swear on your sisters head. Thank you, Pa. Did he imagine that she was going to set off into the wilds of Hampshire with an infant in arms? What had he ever done to deserve that extreme a loyalty? She’d told him she had other responsibilities. And, what was this about the police? Surely they couldn’t be interested in his youthful crimes. What the devil had he done now? It couldn’t be over that blackmail of Mr Holmes, could it? That had been up in Norfolk.
Whatever it was, he’d have to get out of it on his own. She was finished. And she had no intention of hanging his happiness bird over Samuel’s head.
And in any event, she had no idea how to get to Hampshire.
—
But within the hour, she was packing a bag with Billy under her feet.
“What is this, Ma’am?”
Were there sufficient napkins for Samuel? Better add a few more. “What is what?” she asked absently.
“This bird.” He had found her father’s string creation on the windowsill.
“It’s something my father made for Samuel.” Cloak, umbrella, or both?
“You have a father?”
Damnation. “I suppose I do.”
“Can I meet him?”
“No! Oh, Billy, sorry. I haven’t seen him in a long time, and he’s not a terribly nice man. So no, you probably won’t meet him.” Ever, if I have my way, she thought. “Would you like that bluebird? He says it’s a charm for happiness.”
“But he made it for Samuel.”
“Sam would just chew it to bits. It’s yours.” To her relief, it distracted him from questions about its maker. She wrestled the valise shut, and picked up her cloak.
“You’re not to go out working on your own, boy, you hear me? If I come back and find you nibbed, I swear I’ll leave you in gaol. You just have a nice few days of rest, and catch up on that maths of yours. I’ll post this letter to The Bishop telling him I’ve been called away, but I’ll be back. He’ll not mind.” She hoped. On the other hand, the old criminal might just decide he’d had enough of her sass and draw a line through her name.
“But where’re you going?”
“You don’t need to know that. I’ll be back in two or three days. A week at the most. There’s money in the caddy for your meals, you’ll be fine.”
“Can’t you leave Samuel here?”
At that she laughed. “I’m not sure which of us’d have the hardest time of it if I did—him, me, or you.” Then she relented, dropping to her knees to grasp the lad’s shoulders. “Billy, I promise you, even though I’m taking Samuel, I will come back. We will come back. This is to do with my father, and I’m hoping that at the end of it, he’ll be out of my hair for good, and you and I can go on as we have been. You’re my partner, William Mudd. Are you not?”
She feared for a moment that the hard little face would collapse into tears, but he regained control and just gave her a sharp nod. Still, she gathered him in for a quick hug, kissing his tight curls before briskly standing away to finish tucking the baby’s clothing into the valise. She gave him a few more coins, repeated her commandments, and left, feeling his eyes on her back as she descended the stairs.
She bought a stamp from the agents’ down the road, where she also confirmed her suspicion that the station for Hampshire was Waterloo. The Bishop’s letter safely in a post-box, herself heavily encumbered with infant, valise, and a large umbrella, Clarissa Hudson set off to rescue her father from whatever stupidity he’d got himself into.
Merely crossing London took her most of the morning. Figuring out the confusion of Waterloo station with its multiple entrances, tracks, and ticketing offices took the remainder. There was, it appeared, a train to Fordingham, or there might be, if she could first locate a train to Salisbury…
She did not have to feign her womanly tears of despair, none of the three times she made use of them to gain the assistance of officials that very long day. She spent the night in a town she never knew the name of, and the following day, tears came even before she summoned them. Modern transportation was nothing but one delay after another! She’d have been better off in a post coach. More bounced about perhaps, but no less exhausted—or filthy, her clothing dotted with black smuts and grime from the seats.
She did not reach Fordingham until late the following afternoon. Samuel, perverse child, seemed quite pleased with the tumult of the stations, the boredom of the trains, and the frustrations of his mother. He only woke to feed, such as when she stepped off the train at long last. She looked around the deserted station. A man and his son got off the other end of the train, and hurried away in the opposite direction: the man’s coat and the magazine the child was clutching both whirled in the freshening breeze. The sky looked like rain.
Clarissa would have given a great deal for a cup of tea, but neither food nor drink was on offer. She did pause to fill Samuel’s belly before continuing through to the little village beyond. The White Hart lay immediately across a minuscule triangle of grass. She settled Samuel more firmly inside her shawl, and crossed the village green to the road that ran past the public house.
Before I had led Samuel Hudson out of his mother’s rooms, I was ready.
The matter of his gun changed little. The longer I kept him occupied, the greater the likelihood of his guard slipping: when that happened, I would move.
Until then, I would appear a powerless young
woman who might have something he wanted—who probably did have it, if only she knew what it was.
But, he did not bend down to look into the depths of the cupboard, merely ordered me to pull out the crate. Disappointed, I removed my hand from the pile of heavy books. “Take it into the sitting room and dump it out on the table,” he said.
I carried the box through and upended its neatly sorted contents onto the polished wood. He gestured with the gun for me to move back, then paused to eye the pretty lamp that lived on the corner of the table—a fixture that made me nervous with its blown-glass delicacy, although I admitted its loveliness when the sun came through it.
“That belongs to her, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“Mrs Hudson? I…don’t think so.”
“Yeah, it does. She sent Mum a picture of it, she loved it so much.” His stress on the verb prepared me for his next act: he backhanded it straight into the waste-bin beside the table. The noise seemed to satisfy him. He gloated for a moment, then turned to the sad collection, thumbing through the packet of mismatched letters that Mrs Hudson had smoothed and folded together.
“My mother liked her secrets.” He pulled a wry face. “Both mothers, come to that.” He picked up one of the two surviving dolly costumes, this one of forest green velvet. “Who’d do that to a boy?” he mused. “Give him over to a woman who just loved to tease her son—the boy who thought he was her son. Letting him know he’d never be anything, never make her happy, never figure out that there was a hole in his life. She used to say that. ‘Boy, you got a hole in your life and you don’t even see it.’ Like it was my fault I couldn’t figure out something they’d hidden from me.” He tossed the doll into the crate, then reached down to flip through the Dickens novel, as if looking for a bookmark left behind; some of the loose pages spilled out.
“You know what she used to do, my dear old Mum?”
His decision to talk, back in Mrs Hudson’s rooms, had certainly loosened his tongue; now, if the gun would only sag, just a little more…