“Much the same, Mrs. Martin. Now I have a favor to ask you.”
“Anything, madam.” The housekeeper straightened up and smiled willingly at her. She seemed to be one of those people with the good sense to put down an unpleasant thought and move away from it, treating it as one would a dog of suspicious temper. “Since you came it’s been made clear to us that a word from you is as good as one from Mrs. Service or Mr. Graves.”
“Thank you. But this is not something I can order you to do.” Harriet turned to her and spoke with a slightly brittle brightness. “I wish to borrow some clothes from you, then have you come with me to Lord Carmichael’s house.”
The woman lost her smile, looked a little stunned and gave a mumbling assent, then turned to leave the room. Her hand on the doorknob, however, she seemed to reconsider and turned back toward Harriet.
“May I speak my mind, madam?”
Harriet kept the bright tone as if she might win her point by sheer good humor. “Do, Mrs. Martin.”
“I mean no disrespect, madam, but I think you have in mind to pass for a servant and get into conversation with Lord Carmichael’s household. I need to tell you, I don’t think you’ll pass, madam. Not even if you dress in rags.”
Harriet frowned. “You think I cannot adopt the proper tone?”
“I think you have no notion of the manner of it, madam. How could you? And if you wish to talk to the people there, I know a better way. The beau of Susanna, maid at the house on the opposite side of the Square, he’s a footman at Lord Carmichael’s, and there would be nothing strange about me popping in to give him some message or other on my way to elsewhere.”
Harriet thought at first to protest, but something in the calm certainty of the young woman made her falter. Instead she said: “What is your suggestion?”
“You and I can go in the carriage together. Drop me a little out of the way and I’ll swear if it can be done, I’ll come back with what you need. Now how’s that, Mrs. Westerman? And no need for you to be seen playing at being a servant as if it’s a holiday.”
“It is a better idea, Mrs. Martin.” Harriet hesitated. “I hope I did not insult you with my request.”
The woman paused. “I am not in a position to take offense, madam. You are as good a mistress as many and better than most, I think. But your feet don’t touch the ground in London much between carriage, chair and porch, do they? That restricts your knowing.” She folded her hands in front of her again, and became once more the model of an efficient servant to her house, as if the hand of some deity had passed across her face and masked her from the world. “You’ll wish to be leaving now, madam? I’ll have Slater fetch the carriage round.”
Harriet nodded and looked down at the hem of her dress. It was perfectly clean and colored pale. In the country she could never manage more than half a day without kicking up mud and dust and tearing the thin fabrics on brambles as she went about her estate. How much easier it was to keep decent in Town, for all the blood she walked through.
The river was as crazed with noise and traffic as the Strand. Dozens of wherries with an oarsman or two and little nests of passengers in the stern rowed back and forth across the water. The men held their hats in place and tried to look at ease, while the women pulled their skirts tight around their ankles to keep them out of the wet. Along the river, great merchant ships waited to unload their goods or see to their provisioning, making the Thames a winter forest of masts and ropes.
Jocasta and Molloy went along the banks as best they could, each stopping and talking with whomever they could hold onto by the arm for enough time to get a word and a story out. The faces of those they spoke to looked grim and angry, then like as not they shook their heads and carried on. It took hours, and Jocasta was ready to curse Molloy for a fool and wring the neck of the next fella who pointed to the ships-as if a merchant seaman would do her any good-till a youngish man who wore, with a swagger, a neater coat than most, said, when his head shaking and teeth sucking was done, “Try that way, if that’s your liking, mate. If I hear Proctor tell me one more time about the great heroes of the sea he’s served with, I’ll break my oar over his back. You’ll find him down along by the by the Black Lyon Stairs-works there with his nephew, Jackson.”
Jocasta twitched Molloy over with her finger. In turning, he slipped a little in the mud and snapped at the man who steadied his arm.
“We have a beginning,” she said.
“At last,” Molloy grumbled, with a bitter and bitten look. “Though they would point us back all the way we’ve come and a step more. I don’t like water. Never have. I was built to travel on land.”
“I’m of your mind. And the bank stinks worse than the Shambles. Our way lies along it though, so watch your step or the river gods will grab you and drag you down to drown you.”
Harriet was feeling rather content with herself by the time she and Mrs. Martin had returned to Berkeley Square. Mrs. Martin had been greeted as a celebrity in Lord Carmichael’s kitchen, bringing as she did selected gossip of Crowther and Mrs. Westerman’s investigations. She had been there a good while and was a little apologetic on returning to her seat in the carriage.
After relating what she had learned, she added quietly, “I am sorry, ma’am, but I did speak of you coming home last night with Miss Marin’s blood on your dress. It is the sort of picture the cook there reads all the true confessions of Newgate for, and it turned her most confiding.”
Harriet immediately reassured her. “Mrs. Martin, you have been wonderful, and I have no argument with you.”
They carried on together to the workshop of a Mr. Prothero as a result of the information Mrs. Martin had won from the household, and the little shock of Mrs. Martin’s earlier reprimand was salved by Harriet’s own performance as a rich and chatty wife. When the carriage steps were let down in Berkeley Square again therefore, Harriet was most satisfied.
She was keen to share what she had learned, and it was not until she was opening the door to the library that she remembered she was very angry with Crowther. He was standing in front of the fire when she came in, leaning more heavily than usual on his cane. He turned toward her, his expression uncertain. She paused on the threshold.
“Mr. Crowther, do you admit that you are at times a cruel and vicious-tempered cur?”
He bowed toward her. “I cannot do otherwise. Mrs. Westerman, I have been trying at various points throughout this long morning to think how I can apologize for my words.”
“Have you indeed? That must have been very unsettling for you.”
“It was.”
Harriet entered the room and closed the door behind her. There was a silence.
“It would appear nothing appropriate occurred to you,” she said finally.
“I fear not.”
Harriet opened her mouth to protest, then, seeing Crowther looking up at her hopefully, found herself surprised into laughter.
“You are beyond hope, Crowther! Though Lord knows, your manners have never given much cause for optimism.”
He nodded his agreement and shifted his weight off his cane. Those intimately acquainted with him might have noticed a look of relief and satisfaction cross his face in a breeze, but Harriet was too eager to share her findings of the day to take particular note, and not another being in London would have seen it.