Next to her stooped a girl whom Harriet guessed to be twenty-five at the most. She was all milk to Mrs. Spitter’s tar. Her face was not unpleasant, but rather blank, and her mouth never seemed quite shut, while her eyes looked and blinked at the company with an air of mildly curious surprise. She was so pale her complexion seemed tinged blue, and her hair was blond but very thin and weak. Her gaze picked out Mr. Tompkins and she gave him such an openhearted smile of welcome that Harriet found herself oddly touched.
It seemed Mr. Tompkins was a little at a loss as to who to introduce to whom, so simply opened his mouth once or twice and shut it again. Mrs. Spitter started to raise her eyebrows, which Harriet guessed to be an unhappy sign, so she took a step forward toward the lady with her hand held out. Something about this matron suggested to her it would be best to state her business with the minimum of flummery.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Spitter. Thank you for receiving us. We would like very much to talk to Gladys about her angel.”
Mrs. Spitter’s eyebrows descended and she smiled. Harriet thought of a dragon folding its wings.
“You are Mrs. Westerman, and that man next to whom Mr. Tompkins is bobbing about like a cork is Mr. Crowther, I suppose.”
“Quite so.”
Mrs. Spitter looked Harriet up and down with great care, then took her hand and shook it firmly. She indicated the unoccupied sofa and, as her visitors seated themselves, said, “You could wear jet with your coloring, Mrs. Westerman. Gladys, of course, could not. But I have seen redheads carry it off to great effect.”
Harriet sensed that this remark was a sign of approval and gave her thanks, and promise to consider it with great seriousness.
“Mr. Tompkins,” said Mrs. Spitter in a tone that suggested he had not been recommended to wear jet, “tells us you have been looking into the business in that house out back.”
“We have. And we have some pictures to show Gladys, if she is willing to see them. We wish to know if we have caught a likeness of her angel,” Harriet replied, and looked at Crowther.
He produced the sheets Susan had given him from his pocket and passed them to Harriet without comment, sensing that this conversation was to take place exclusively between the women. Harriet passed them to Mrs. Spitter. The lady turned to her daughter.
“Gladys dear, attend to me.” Gladys’s attention seemed to wander a second then with a slight wobble she turned her face toward her mother and blinked at her. Mrs. Spitter patted the girl’s knee. “Now I wish you to look at these pictures and tell me if you know the people here.”
She held the papers in front of Gladys, showing her each one in turn. Gladys appeared to be delighted to look at pictures, and examined them with interest but no apparent sign of recognition in her expression. Mrs. Spitter lowered the pages and asked, “Do you know any of these people here? I mean, have you seen any of them before? Think now, child. Answer as best you can for your mama.”
Gladys picked through the papers in her mother’s hands and pulled one out with great care, her tongue caught between her teeth as she did so.
“This one?” her mother asked. She was answered with a swift nod. Harriet tried to decide who was most likely to be on the page as it turned. Despite Manzerotti’s tune, she was so convinced the picture would be that of Lord Carmichael that when Mrs. Spitter turned the paper and she saw the familiar picture of Bywater, she was more disappointed than she thought she had capacity for. After a moment she looked at Gladys.
“Gladys, may I ask you a question?”
The young woman bobbed her head happily. Perhaps more important, Harriet caught Mrs. Spitter’s almost imperceptible nod from the corner of her eye. “Thank you. Now can you tell me when you saw this gentleman? Was it the same day that the angel took Mr. Fitzraven away?”
Gladys bobbed her head again and then said in a perfectly fluent voice, but rather high-pitched and rushed, “It was a walk day. When I have seen both of the cats from Mrs. Pewter’s on the roof, but not together, and three birds have sat on each of the chimney pots of Mrs. Girdle’s house, that means God wishes me to walk down to the corner and back three times and pay very close attention to everything I see. Sometimes He tells me to go in the morning. Sometimes I have to wait until afternoon. God made me wait that day till it was afternoon. Five minutes past three o’clock by the big clock in the upper parlor which was my nursery but is still my room where I listen to God, and He instructs me.”
Crowther was looking with fascination at the young woman. Mrs. Spitter was perhaps used to seeing her daughter’s eccentricities mocked. While Gladys spoke she was looking very hard at Crowther-indeed, such was the force of her gaze that the jet about her throat seemed to quiver. When her daughter paused she addressed him very fiercely.
“Mr. Crowther, perhaps you find my daughter’s communications with the deity amusing?”
Crowther shifted his attention to the mother, looked at her for a long moment, and blinked.
“I rarely find anything amusing, Mrs. Spitter. I am not a religious man, but I am convinced we are all unique. If the deity wishes to communicate with us, I see no reason to suspect He would not communicate with us all in unique ways.”
Mrs. Spitter stared a moment longer while she considered this comment, then her face and form relaxed a little and she went so far as to bestow on Mr. Crowther a faint smile. She motioned for her daughter to continue. The girl did so, plucking at the folds of her dress a little with small unconscious, regular movements.
“As I was coming back the second time from the corner, two hack carriages and a wagon passed me by and after the wagon, that gentleman crossed over the road and I saw his face for he was looking out for further passing vehicles and he walked up ahead of me and turned to the left at the top of the road just as the butcher’s boy was coming down toward the house. I saw twenty-three horses in total without turning my head, fourteen coming toward me and nine going away, so more coming than going-so that meant God was pleased with me and I had understood His meaning, and on entering the house I might sit at the window with the picture book and turn a page every time a bird landed on Mrs. Pewter’s chimney pot until I could count fourteen candles in the windows then I might go to bed. And I did that well too, even though I had to wait a long time after my supper was taken away because I saw His angel come and take His servant away-and that is a very special gift from God.”
Harriet tried to stop herself from looking at Gladys’s little hand plucking away at her dress. She noticed the fabric there looked a little worn. Mrs. Spitter gently laid her fingers on her daughter’s wrist. The hand was stilled at once, and the girl looked up at her mother with a grateful smile.
“Indeed it is, Gladys,” Harriet said. “Tell me, when you went to the window with the picture book, did you see Mr. Fitzraven in his room? We think this gentleman in the drawing you have shown us was going to visit him.”
The girl shook her head rather violently. “I did not see Mr. Fitzraven until His angel came to fetch him. He was sitting at his desk making his own picture book when God told me to go for my walk. But he was not there when God told me to come back.”