Mr. Palmer’s most recent meeting with Mrs. Harriet Westerman had been in London, and extremely unpleasant. She had appeared at the Admiralty without an appointment and had taken him to task, in vehement tones and in public. She had accused him of harassing her sick husband. It had been an uncomfortable situation and Mr. Palmer had his profession’s hatred of scenes. Yet now he sought her out.
Examining his pocket watch again, he watched the minute hand finally creep to the head of the hour. Of her companion, Mr. Crowther, he had no personal knowledge, so knew only what the world knew: that the man was known for his expertise on the marks left on a body by violence; known for his wealth and eccentricity; known for having a father murdered and brother hanged for the killing, for having refused his rightful title and seat in the Lords to instead sell his estate and study the science of anatomy in obscurity, till Mrs. Westerman plucked him free and made him help her save the lives and fortunes of young Lord Sussex and his sister. Mr. Palmer had read the pamphlets and listened to the gossip and drawn his own conclusions.
He stepped forward.
2
Jocasta Bligh pumped the handle and filled her pail in the center of Arnold’s Yard. Her arms were strong and she took some pleasure in the work, even on a morning as gray as this, twitching with the winter to come. As the water reached the brim of her bucket she became aware of a presence over her shoulder, a hopeful shadow. Without turning, she spoke.
“Give us it here, Hopps.” Then, putting her own bucket to one side, she took another from the old man who had arrived behind her. He was a shrunken, wasted-looking thing, his teeth all memory and wearing hardly more than rags. “Why don’t you get a girl in to do for you mornings, Hopps?” she said, working the pump again. “I’d swear you have the blunt to do it, what with the rent we pays you, and I know you ain’t spending it all on your fancy clothes.”
Hopps looked down at his ragged linen and laughed a laugh that sounded like rocks dragged over gravel. His breath hit the back of her neck with the smell of rotted onions. “Oh, Mrs. Bligh! Why waste the money on some young thing, when you have strong arms still. Gives a man pleasure, it do, to see you working that thing!”
She turned and passed over the bucket a little quick so he panted a bit as he took the weight.
“Most obliged, madam,” he said, looking a little sorry. “But are you not singing today? It is how I know that the day has begun when I hear the pump going and you crooning some tune from the north. I should have thought a stranger was in the yard till I looked through the window and saw your skirts.”
Jocasta was famous around the yard for many things, among them her patchwork skirts, voluminous, multicolored, constantly reworked and visible a dozen yards off. No one could say if she had many or few; they changed little by little like the foliage on the pear tree that hung over the pump. You could hardly say they changed one day to the next, till a moment came and you looked and saw gold where all had been green before.
Crossing her broad arms over her chest, the woman looked down at her dried-up wisp of a landlord.
“Here I am though, and as for the singing, we all have dreams from time to time that leave us quiet in the morning.”
“Every day I have them, Mrs. Bligh. And always worse to come when I wake.”
Jocasta made no reply, but took up her own pail and hauled it back to her own door, shoving it open with her thigh and growling at the little rust-colored terrier that yapped about her. Every morning she fetched water from the pump in Arnold’s Yard for boiling or washing, and every morning it was the same. Boyo thought it was a game and jumped at the swing bucket and bounced around her ankles and skirts till the water splashed and her stockings were soaked. There, now the step into the hallway was wet and she could hear Hopps’s laugh from the courtyard, enjoying the show.
“Dog, will you settle?”
She kicked the door to, got the pail to its place and dipped in a jug to fill the kettle. Her thick knees clicked like knitting needles and as the enamel tapped the wooden side of the bucket she sat back her bulk on her heels. Time flowed around her like water; some more years would pass and then she too would struggle to fetch her water. The dream she’d dreamed in the night whispered through her head and away; she tilted her head as if to pour it out of her mind and into the light. It was The Chariot, or at least something like it-it had run past her or run her over, or had she been swung up inside it to ride alongside a demon in a mask?
Boyo barked, and the sound swept the dream pictures from her.
“All right, all right, I know! The tea’s not ready and neither of us fed and there will be a dozen people to tell the future to before we can be just ourselves again.”
She got the kettle on the fire, then twisted around with a grunt to where her pack of picture cards sat on her table. She spread them flat, let her fingers hover over them a moment and drew one out. The Chariot it was. The prince driving it, spear in one hand and the other on his hip, the golden horses surging on below.
“Trials coming then, are they, Boyo?” Jocasta said and rubbed her chin, then clambered heavily to her feet. The dog cocked its head on one side. “Same as every day in a dirty town then.” She looked around her room. Her walls felt thin all of a sudden, and the fire small. If The Chariot did come, how much of its turmoil would she stand before her sanctuary was all crumpled to nothing and she herself was back out in the gutter? Well, so turns the wheel. Let The Chariot come, for now she was warm again and the kettle was beginning to sing. “So let’s see what business we can make of living today, shall we?”
The cards waited on the rough little table for their first visitors. Mrs. Jocasta Bligh earned her bread plucking truth out of them with a patient hand, and a frown on her heavy face.
3
“Let me understand you correctly, Mr. Palmer. You wish us to go and examine a corpse?”
“Yes, madam.” Mr. Palmer had decided that a character such as Mrs. Westerman was best approached with a mix of respect and hesitation. He had allowed himself to stumble over his words a little as he arrived. The important consideration was that Mrs. Westerman should feel she was being humbly asked for help; that he was a supplicant, not that she was all but being given an order by a servant of her king. He should be careful to avoid waking her temper again. To Mr. Crowther he hoped to offer a puzzle and see if flattery might draw him into usefulness.
Placing his teacup on the side table, Mr. Palmer cleared his throat. The clock on the mantel of the drawing room in 24 Berkeley Square seemed very loud. The space was lit by three high windows looking out on to the Square, and could have easily contained a party of thirty. Small groups of gilded chairs and settees were scattered around it at discreet distances, the walls were decorated with classical, pastoral scenes and molded garlands, of flowers and bows; large porcelain jars, richly patterned, stood sentinel in every available nook like fat footmen. There was a great deal of gilt in the scheme. Mr. Palmer conjectured that Mr. Owen Graves, a young gentleman plucked from obscurity by the convulsions of the House of Thornleigh, and thrust from scribbler to guardian of one of the great fortunes of the nation, had probably bought the house furnished, and possibly in haste.
In dress and demeanor Mr. Palmer’s hosts formed a distinct contrast to the room in which they sat. Mr. Crowther’s thin figure was dressed in black and he could have passed for a parson. There were some stains, possibly chemical, around his cuffs, though otherwise his person was neat and gentlemanlike, though his manner was dry enough to be offputting. Mrs. Westerman was dressed like a countrywoman-a rich and certainly handsome countrywoman, no doubt-but she was not polished and powdered to the degree usually seen in Town. She looked a great deal older than when Mr. Palmer had first seen her; in her face and manner there was a weariness, a brittle quality. The peculiar sickness of her husband had no doubt caused a strain. She could not be above five and thirty, much his own age, and he knew he was still regarded by some in the Admiralty as a young man. Mr. Palmer saw the morning’s newspaper folded on the settee, a pile of correspondence on the writing table at the far end of the room. The pair had been camping out in a distant corner of all this grandeur, waiting for him.