Alarm flared in the boy’s eyes.
‘Does Mr Whichcote owe you money, sir?’ the girl said suddenly.
‘No. But I wager he owes this lad his wages.’ Holdsworth saw from her face that the shot had gone home and he pressed his advantage. ‘All I want is five minutes’ conversation with you,’ he said to the boy. ‘And your friend may stay with you and see that you come to no harm. And while we talk, you and she may eat the pie. Can we strike a bargain on it?’
It was the pie that provided the clinching argument. Holdsworth had watched it in the boy’s hands. The small, grubby fingers were fiddling at the crust. The smell was rising to his nostrils. A piece of the pie lid came away from the rest and the boy crammed it into his mouth. He glanced at the girl and mutely offered the pie to her. She too broke off a fragment of the crust.
‘Come,’ Holdsworth said. ‘You will not wish to eat and talk in the middle of a crowd. Is there somewhere near by?’
They took him to the little churchyard attached to St Edward’s, where they found a corner in the sunshine and away from the gaze of passers-by. The boy broke the pie in two and offered the larger part to the girl. They ate swiftly and with concentration. Holdsworth made no attempt to talk while they ate. He leaned against the wall of the church and thought how like they were to small animals, only partly tamed.
‘Your friend will not mind moving a little aside while we talk,’ Holdsworth said to the boy when he had finished.
‘She knows as much as I do, sir.’
‘About the club?’
‘Indeed I do, sir.’ The girl’s voice was more Cockney than Cambridge. ‘I helped them make ready and I cleared up their foulness afterwards.’
‘And – and we’re friends, sir.’
‘If you say so,’ the girl said with a touch of scorn.
‘Very well,’ Holdsworth said. ‘You know that I am Mr Holdsworth. I am in the employment of Lady Anne Oldershaw. Let us begin at the beginning and first you shall tell me who you are.’
‘He’s Augustus,’ the girl said. ‘I’m Dorcas.’
‘And are you in service too?’
‘With Mrs Phear in Trumpington Street, sir.’
‘I begin to understand,’ Holdsworth said.
The girl said nothing but her eyes lingered on his face.
‘Mr Oldershaw is a very rich young gentleman,’ he went on. ‘He has it in his power to reward you well and to find you both new situations. Do you remember that meeting at the club in February?’
Augustus nodded.
‘And do you remember what happened in the pavilion? Were you there?’
Colour flooded through Augustus’s face.
‘I see that you do. There is nothing to be afraid of – no blame attaches to you. Tell me about the young girl.’
‘How do we know you ain’t gammoning us?’ Dorcas said suddenly. ‘Maybe she put you up to it.’
‘She?’ Holdsworth said.
‘Madam. Maybe it’s a test.’
‘It isn’t. Augustus knows I am acting for Mr Oldershaw and he has no love for Mr Whichcote.’
The boy nodded, but he kept his eyes on Dorcas.
‘A guinea,’ she said. ‘A guinea apiece.’
‘What about the situation?’ Augustus whispered.
‘A guinea’s a guinea when it’s in your hand,’ Dorcas said. ‘A promise is only a promise.’
‘If you serve me well, you shall have both.’ Holdsworth took out his purse and laid two guineas on the top of the nearest headstone, where they glinted in the sun. ‘You shall have these in a moment or two, when we are finished here.’
The children stared at the coins.
‘Tell me about Tabitha Skinner,’ Holdsworth said.
He knew instantly, by their stunned silence and their blank faces, that the gamble had paid off.
‘The girl,’ he prompted.
Dorcas sighed softly, as if with relief. ‘She come from the Magdalene, sir – you know, up in London. Same as me. But she was pretty.’
‘So are you,’ said Augustus.
‘Mrs Phear brought her?’ Holdsworth said.
‘Yes. That’s how she does it, see? Brings them up here. She tells the Magdalene Board that she can maybe help place them in service and at least train them up while they’re here.’ Dorcas’s pinched little features contorted and became older than their years. ‘Very charitable lady, Mrs Phear. The girls have to pretend they’s a virgin when the young gentlemen come.’
‘You mean to tell me that Mrs Phear brings these girls up from London to be servants and then prostitutes them?’
Dorcas laughed soundlessly, opening her mouth to reveal where her front two teeth had been. ‘Bless you, sir, the girls don’t mind. Not in the general run of things. Half the time the gentlemen are too drunk to mount them, but they get paid just the same. But Tabitha was different – she really was a maid.’
Holdsworth turned aside. The smell of the pie made him want to vomit. After a moment, he said, ‘To put it plainly, Mrs Phear and Mr Whichcote procured a virgin to be raped?’
‘Tabitha said at least she’d lose her maidenhead to a nice clean gentleman and get a good price for it. Miracle she still had it to lose. She said maybe the young gentleman would fall in love with her and offer to marry her. And then she’d have a place of her own and drive around in a gold coach and I could come and be her lady’s maid.’
‘I saw ’em,’ Augustus said. ‘Her and Mrs Phear, when they come in the coach while the company was at supper. I lighted them down the garden to the pavilion.’
‘Did she speak to you?’ Holdsworth asked. ‘How did she seem?’
‘Didn’t say nothing, sir. She was all muffled up, too. Next thing I knows, she’s dead.’
‘Mrs Phear’s dressed as a nun,’ Dorcas said. She made a face.
Augustus gave a high and nervous giggle.
‘Where did they go in the pavilion?’ Holdsworth said.
‘Little room downstairs,’ the boy said. ‘It’s fitted up as a bedchamber, all in white. I had to light a fire there earlier in the day and keep it high. It was all made ready for them, with wine and nuts and fruit and everything.’
‘Tell him how it happened,’ Dorcas said. ‘That’s what he wants.’
‘They were having their supper – and Mrs Phear comes out of the bedchamber and goes up to the house – and after she comes back, she goes into the room. They were having the toasts upstairs by then. And a few minutes later she sends me up to the master with a note. He comes down and goes in to see them. And then, in a while, Mr Oldershaw comes running down the stairs and goes in. He was that hot for Tabitha he couldn’t wait. Didn’t even close the door. That’s when I heard the girl’s dead.’
‘How did she die?’
Augustus shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘She was all in white, and tied to the bed. Her face was funny. Her eyes were open – they bulged like marbles. Maybe she died of fright.’
The boy sat down on the grass, wrapping his arms around his knees. Dorcas touched the top of his head in a gesture that was almost maternal.
‘It was just one of them nuts, boy,’ she said. ‘That’s all. I told you – she couldn’t move, could she, on account of being tied down. She choked herself on half a walnut. Found it in her windpipe when we laid her out.’
‘So then they took her back to Mrs Phear’s?’ Holdsworth said.
‘They put her in with me,’ Dorcas said. ‘All stiff and cold beside me. And I ain’t been free of her since.’
‘She haunts her,’ Augustus whispered. ‘Tabitha’s ghost.’
‘It is nothing but a bad dream,’ Holdsworth snapped. ‘And you, boy, what did you do after they found her?’
‘They sent me back with her, sir. Me and master carried poor Tabitha up the garden in a chair like she was too drunk to walk. Nearly dropped her once. She was flopping about all over the place. We got her in the coach and back to Mrs Phear’s. And when me and Mr Whichcote got back to the pavilion, all the gentlemen had gone home.’