She laughed; they both knew John Snow would never have killed himself over a rival's rumour. “Uncle told Prince Albert that some flaw in the child's blood vessels, perhaps, produced the painful result. He embarked on research—but so little has been published in this country regarding the malady. He learned of German families where it recurs from generation to generation—and solely, it seems, among males. Indeed, Leopold's disorder is sometimes called ‘the German disease.’ ”
“Then the Consort's to blame for his son's illness? Poor wretch.”
“There's no lack of German blood in the Royal line,” Georgie said impatiently. “Indeed, there is little else. But Uncle John could not discover a disorder similar to Leopold's in any of his Hanoverian ancestors—nor among the Saxe-Coburgs, either.”
“But if Leopold has been ill from birth, why should his father demand John's notes then—and destroy them?”
“He must have regarded them as dangerous,” Georgie said simply. “To the child, or . . . others.”
She did not need to say Victoria. Fitzgerald was silent a moment. “What did you tell your Prince, once you knew he'd burned John's papers?”
“That if Leopold could not be cured, the boy would certainly die. I said it was imperative that the Consort make inquiries in Germany, if need be—that he canvass his relations in Saxe-Coburg—that he move heaven and earth to learn more of his son's illness. That was a year ago. This September, the Prince hired a young German doctor by the name of Gunther—and sent him to the south of France, with Leopold, for the boy's health.”
“You think he'd heard of a cure there?”
“Perhaps. Patrick—” She reached for his hand and clasped it. “Having told you everything, I still understand nothing.”
“Not to worry, me darlin',” he said, with a conviction he did not feel. “We'll work it out together.”
They had arrived in St. Giles.
Button Nance's rooms were cold, and the little girls were curled together near the dead hearth. They stared at Georgiana when she opened the unlatched door, but did not speak a word, their great eyes shining faintly in the gaslight from the street below. The acrid odour of wet charcoal lingered in the closed air of the room, a gutter perfume. There was no sign, Fitzgerald noticed, of Davey.
“It is all right,” Georgie said carefully as she entered. “I've come to see Lizzie.”
“A deal of folk've come to see Lizzie,” one of the girls said in a paper-thin whisper. “But Lizzie's dead.”
“Where is your mother?”
“Gone t'pub.”
Georgie hesitated, then moved softly toward the inner room.
The cold in the bedroom was bitter as a tomb. One of the windows had been left open, and a sulfurous fog wafted about the head of the dead girl like an emissary from Hell, waiting to snatch what remained of her. The delicate hands were raised on either side of her head, fists clenched as though in agony; but Lizzie's face, Fitzgerald saw, was wiped clean of both pain and hope, and the eyes stared blankly at the grimy ceiling.
A pillow lay beside the bed, on the bare floor. Without thinking, he picked it up.
Georgiana examined the body, and finally, with a sigh, closed Lizzie's eyes.
“I don't understand it,” she said. “There is no visible sign on the face or limbs of what killed her. But look at her hands! It is as though she died in a convulsive fit.”
“Perhaps she did. You said she suffered from a poisoning of the blood.”
“Yes—but you can see from the clarity of the tissues around the nose and mouth that the fever had subsided at the last. She did not die in delirium. Indeed, I should have said she was improving—but for the fact that her heart has stopped.”
“I'm that sorry, Georgie.” Fitzgerald's fingers kneaded the goose-down pillow uselessly. “Do you trust this Button Nance with a certificate? Or should we knock up the coroner and trust it to him?”
“Where did you find that?” she demanded suddenly.
“Find what?”
“That pillow!”
Fitzgerald glanced down. “Sure, and it was on the floor.”
“Not this morning.”
There was a quality to Georgie's voice that raised the hair on his neck. “What would you mean?”
“I mean,” she replied deliberately, “that nothing clean or fine has ever been found in these rooms.”
“So it was brought here by someone else? And what of that? The child said they've had a deal of folk in to see Lizzie.”
“After she died—or while she was yet living?” With an expression of distaste, Georgiana reached for the pillow. “Patrick—look at her hands.”
As he watched, Georgie lowered the thing gently over Lizzie's head. It rested perfectly on her balled fists.
“She fought him as he smothered her,” she whispered, “but he was too strong—”
“Do you accept, finally, that you're as much at risk as I am?” he asked as they climbed back into the waiting cab.
“What of that?” she demanded contemptuously. “It is Lizzie, poor child, who has paid for my sins—whatever they might be. Can you explain, Patrick, why it is invariably the innocent poor who suffer in this world of ours?”
“Because they've nobody to protect them. Will you leave London with me now, Georgie?”
“I must.”
Fitzgerald rapped on the hansom's roof. “Paul's Wharf. And quickly.”
“A boat, Patrick? At this hour of the night?”
“We shan't go far. Just down the Thames, past Sheerness.”
“Sheerness!”
He glanced at her, his expression curiously closed. “I'm taking you to the Isle of Sheppey. It's a lonely place, but safe with it. You did promise to trust me.”
“But we shan't reach it until midnight! Who will receive us at such an hour?”
“My wife,” he said.
Chapter Twenty
After Bertie left her, Alice spent an hour in the nursery reading to her little sisters. Louise, who was thirteen and considered artistic, looked drawn and frightened; she held her sketch book in her lap, staring at the blank pages. Helena, two years older, could not stop crying. But Beatrice was unquenchable—at four, the utter absolutes of loss escaped her. She was unlikely to miss Papa for long; there had been periods in her brief life when their paths crossed only once in three months. The Consort's duties had been that consuming.
Now Alice was undressing before bed. She had spent a dreary evening perusing one of Mama's volumes of sacred sermons, her usual duty on Sunday, and sought her bedchamber early, from a deep desire to end the hideous day. Violet, her maid, was respectfully silent as she removed the pins from Alice's hair—a girl who chattered thoughtlessly at most times, on every subject appropriate or scandalous. The maid's eyes were red from sympathetic weeping.
Alice studied her own reflection in the mirror. Black clothes brought out the sallowness of her skin. They deepened the charcoal shadows beneath her eyes; deep lines ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth, as though she had endured starvation or terror. Bertie had probably ascribed her dreadful looks to the sleepless nights she'd devoted to Papa's final illness. She hoped Mama would do the same. She did not want anyone to suspect she harboured a guilty secret. She was unequal to the forms of torture that might be applied to win the truth.
“Violet,” she said slowly. “May I trust you with a particular service? One that is quite private—that you must not breathe to anyone?”
The maid's warm brown eyes widened avidly. “Of course, Your Highness! I shan't breathe a word—cross my heart and hope to be struck dead if I'm a liar!”
“See that this letter is collected with tomorrow's post.” She slipped a common white envelope into Violet's hand. “I do not wish it to be known as mine. If anyone chances to observe you—destroy it.”