Shadow of the Past Read online

  ‘What I cannot understand is this deviation from our plan,’ he declared with asperity. ‘You were both to be clergymen.’ He sat on the day bed and stared at me.

  ‘As I told you, we thought a gentle enquiry from a clergyman might be to no avail, that a man in the mould of Vernon might be sufficiently intimidating.’ I would not implicate Jem. Perhaps we had both been pot-valiant when we had hatched the scheme.

  He gave me a shrewd glance, but said nothing. ‘And to repeat my question, where shall we dine tonight? Thank goodness Sir Marcus and his tribe have inured us to town hours. Even so, I could eat a stalled ox.’

  ‘I’m sure we shall find some herbs to go with it. But not here. I told dear old Tilly – the housekeeper – that I should fend for myself this evening, though I know she is longing to cook for me. Tomorrow, perhaps… Did you bring your evening gear? Well, then, may I suggest Grillon’s…’

  ‘You set the Runners after an innocent family?’ Jem repeated, in tones mixing disbelief and doubt.

  We had been shown by one of the Franes’ little maids, apologising for her mistress’ absence, into the same dismal morning room as before. It did not respond well to the sun, enfeebled though it was by misty cloud which would become fog by the end of the day.

  ‘They may be far from innocent. Do not blame Tobias – it was my doing,’ Edmund insisted. ‘We cannot run all over the country looking for the family.’

  ‘But what if they are free of all blame? After all, to have a strange man presenting himself at your door and demanding to see someone—’

  This was in fact exactly what Jem had recommended. However, there was no point in repining, and I would certainly not apportion blame, since I had acquiesced more than willingly in the change of plan. Even to the boots.

  Edmund replied, ‘Then at very least we shall be able to speak to them about what made them flee. And how do you do, Jem? It does not seem to me as if the Reverend James Yeomans slept well.’

  Jem looked about him, as if he could detect ears pressed to the door. He dropped his voice. ‘Mr and Mrs Frane do their best, I suppose.’ He stopped short, pulling back his cuff to reveal the unmistakeable sight of flea bites.

  ‘Which is the most damning condemnation one may make,’ growled Edmund softly. ‘And have you had any luck with your enquiries?’ he asked in his normal voice.

  ‘None, as yet. But Toby’s bribery encouraged many children – and some older people – to come to the church porch at four. I told them what I needed to know, asked if any of their acquaintance had gone missing – which aroused considerable black mirth, I fear – and promised a reward for hard news. I was just about to set forth about the taverns when you called. I accompanied Mr Frane to matins,’ he said, as if needing an excuse for not having set mouth to tankard before now. ‘There were just the two of us and the churchwardens. I left the three of them discussing a funeral. There are so many there is talk of obtaining more land to extend the graveyard, but Mr Frane suspects that many families simply dispose of their kin in the river, to save expense.’

  ‘It is, alas, not just those who die in what pass for their beds who fetch up in the river,’ Dr Hansard observed. ‘It behoves us to make sure that you do not inadvertently become one of them.’

  ‘Amen,’ I agreed.

  ‘As to that, it would be better if I were not seen in your company,’ Jem said, with a smile I thought was forced. ‘Deviating from our plan had ill results yesterday, Toby, and I am sorry for it.’

  ‘Nay, my assailants might not have been deterred by my bands,’ I said hastily.

  ‘What I fear, Jem, is that yours may not be either,’ Hansard said grimly. ‘Might I make one suggestion? I understand that you will send a messenger with any news. Pray do not go into any detail. The simple word Eureka will suffice. I have it,’ he explained.

  Suppressing a vision of Jem, like the great philosopher, hurtling naked down the street, I said, ‘And pray God we have it soon – the sooner we return to the safety of our village the better.’

  They both looked at me. ‘Safety? In Moreton St Jude? There was none for the poor man in the stream, Tobias,’ Edmund reminded me, ‘and there may be none for us, once all this comes out.’

  ‘If only we could unlock its secrets,’ Dr Hansard declared fervently.

  We stood before the Rosetta Stone, which I had seen back in ’01 or ’02 when it was first put on display. Dr Hansard, however, had not visited the British Museum since his return from India and evinced a desire to see this wonder of the ancient world. I had suggested a tour of the museum to take our minds off Jem’s possible trials, realising all too strongly that much as we wanted to protect him, our very presence might endanger him further.

  ‘I believe that there is already a young French scholar hard at work on just such an investigation,’ I said, dredging the information from some gossip conveyed to me by one of my mother’s regular chatty letters.

  ‘French? I suppose it is fitting, since it was French soldiers who discovered it in the first place. How such works of art come to be spoils of war, allocated under a treaty, defeats me. God knows what we would have to cede should Napoleon conquer us.’ He looked at his watch, for perhaps the fourth time in the last half hour. He, too, was wondering if our friend was still safe.

  I strove for something that would divert our thoughts, preferably an occupation that made no further demands on my feet. The smart boots might remain in my chamber, there being no need for a respectable clergyman to embrace anything other than comfort, but they had a lasting revenge. We would both enjoy a performance at Drury Lane that evening. Should I bespeak our vacant family box or pay for a lowlier place? I explained the situation to Edmund.

  ‘I think that you were in the right of it as far as Jem was concerned,’ he said at last. ‘And I rather think we should continue to eschew the comforts of the box. I do not want him to have the slightest idea that you treated us differently, and I am sure that, careful as we might be, we might let the secret drop. Let us go with the crowd, Tobias. Then if the performance is bad, we can hiss it off the stage.’

  The performance was neither good nor bad. We had promised Mrs Tilbury that we would afterwards return to Berkeley Square. Just as Mrs Trent would have been piqued not to show off her skills, so dear Tilly wished to show she was still the mistress of a bachelor supper. Given the state of her poor eyes, I dared make no predictions as to the quality, but I would wager that the quantity would be equal to Mrs Trent’s.

  We pushed our way through the crush in the foyer. It was thronged with brightly garbed and painted Cyprians all plying their trade. Taking Edmund’s arm, I hurried us through.

  ‘You are turned Puritan?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘I am indeed filled with disgust.’ And who would not be, at the lewd propositions even now being whispered in my ear?

  ‘With the men who use such women or the women themselves?’ His voice was sterner.

  ‘What woman can stoop so low as to sell her body?’ I demanded.

  ‘Those with no alternative.’

  ‘Alternative? Surely there must be alternatives? Think of the good women of our village, toiling night and day to keep their families together. Would they ever stoop to such a trade?’

  ‘If their husbands had left the land and come to the city in search of a decent wage – what would the women do then? Oh, they can become servants, milliners, I grant you. But say their men die, or are seized by press gangs, or simply disappear? How is such a woman to survive?’

  ‘There is always poor relief…the workhouse…’ I blustered.

  ‘Tobias, you are truly scraping the barrel of argument. Do not our very laws begrudge poor relief, despatching applicants back to their home parish? And the workhouses? Why, you know how desperate your own flock are to escape such a fate.’

  ‘Indeed…’ I bit my lip. ‘I am still repelled by the very notion of that most pure of God’s creatures, a woman, should…’

  ‘Pure? Consider what har
m a woman is capable of, Tobias. We have seen it in our own village. I grant you that such a trade is repellent, as vile as slavery. But to every trade there are two partners, the seller and the buyer. Look at those bucks ogling the women, just as if they were so many paintings in a gallery. And I tell you, they would look after a painting better. Not discard it after looking at it.’

  ‘I feel soiled in their very presence, Edmund. Both buyers’ and sellers’. Let us quit the place now.’

  I waited for the ubiquitous Wilfred, now unaccountably grand in a butler’s tail-coat two sizes too large for him, to serve us Madeira in the yellow saloon and withdraw. Encouraging smells had wafted from behind the green baize door to welcome us on our return. The very moment we rang, supper would be served in the family dining room, Wilfred declared as he bowed himself out.

  ‘It seems to me,’ I began nervously, aware that my achievements in the capital had not been great, ‘that there is still something you and I – more particularly I – might do to discover information about Mr Chamberlain, and possibly even the Larwoods.’ Encouraged by Hansard’s bright questioning look, I continued. ‘If I returned to Hans Crescent in what is now my proper attire, I could present myself as what I am – a country clergyman eager to trace the family for – some purpose or other,’ I concluded lamely.

  ‘You do not think that anyone saw you approaching the house and being turned away?’

  ‘They might have seen an aspiring country sprig, with a particular brilliance to his boots, but they surely would not associate him with me. I do not think the Larwoods would have time to make their escape and communicate the reason to all and sundry. Indeed, they would want to conceal any motive for their flight.’

  ‘And you think that as long as you are rustic in your choice of footwear and clerical in your garb, you might cajole information from unwary householders or their garrulous servants. And what would your pretext be?’

  ‘That is something we could perhaps discuss over supper. I fear that that blow sadly addled my brain, Edmund, but perhaps some of Mrs Tilbury’s beef pudding will restore it.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In the end, Edmund and I decided that when I questioned the Larwoods’ neighbours or their servants, the nature of my search would be vague, limited to such discreet hints as ‘a family affair’. Let my interlocutors interpret that how they would. Initially I would go not to front doors, with knockers gleaming or otherwise, but to the servants’ entrance, as befitted a humble parson.

  Edmund, meanwhile, would lurk in a hack just down the street, reading a long letter handed to him as we left the house. It was from Mrs Hansard. It seemed that she had promised to write every day, giving every domestic detail. Since there was no one to frank her mail, I imagined that this would prove an expensive separation, even though she had crossed and recrossed the lines.

  We agreed that if I did not emerge after what he thought a reasonable interval, he would come in search of me. With his fighting prowess, not to mention his repellent-looking cudgel, I could think of no more efficient guardian angel.

  My first visit, earlier than it would be acceptable to pay morning calls to the householders themselves, was to the left of the Larwoods’ house. My informants, a blowsy cook and insinuating manservant, would have worried their employers by their general garrulity, which ate into their time and mine, but brought me no nearer details of the Larwood household. I signified to Edmund that I had abandoned that house, and would move to the neighbour on the right-hand side. These servants were clearly too harassed to indulge in the sort of general conversation likely to lead tactfully to the information I sought. In fact, it was only when I reached the house three doors further down that I struck gold in the form of the nursery maid, a girl of about twelve, applying diminutive pinafores to the washboard.

  ‘’Tis strange you should be asking about them, your honour, because their little Miss Emma is bosom bows with our Miss Augusta.’ She paused in her labour, wiping her reddened hands on her apron. ‘According to Nurse – Nurse Stoughton, that is – they’re like sisters. Stands to reason, being the same age and both on their own.’ She dropped her voice. ‘Master Frederick was taken from us last year by the putrid throat and Miss Thomasina called to the angels with measles.’

  Rigidly suppressing my unholy imagination, I made suitable noises of sympathy. ‘Does Miss Emma have no brothers or sisters?’

  ‘No. And no sign of any, either, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘And what sort of a child is Miss Emma?’

  ‘Like Miss Augusta – awake on every suit, and as pretty as paint.’

  I nodded, hoping she would tell me something I didn’t know. ‘Like her parents, Miss – er…?’ I asked vaguely.

  ‘Betty. Betty Ewers at your service.’ She dropped a curtsy, continuing as if there had been no interruption, ‘Lord bless you, no. Two carrot-heads, they are. Auburn, I should say. And she as dark as the devil.’

  Would Edmund deduce anything from that?

  ‘Except there isn’t anything impish about her,’ she continued. ‘Quite the little angel, she is.’

  Since what she said accorded with my brief impression, I smiled encouragingly. ‘But little children are often naughty – in their way.’

  ‘Not Miss Emma. Her nurse – Miss Fowler, that is – says she knew her letters and her numbers before you could credit it. And she’ll sing a little hymn as sweet as a bird.’

  ‘Did Nurse Fowler leave with the family?’

  ‘Now that I don’t know. She may have, because I’ve not seen her since, but that doesn’t mean anything, does it? They cast you off, these people, leaving you to find another position as if they grew on trees,’ she said with the bitter wisdom of one twice her age.

  ‘Miss Betty, would Nurse Stoughton know where Nurse Fowler’s family might live?’ I chinked a couple of coins encouragingly.

  ‘I could go and ask her, your honour.’

  The coins slipped from my hand into hers. She ran off like the wind.

  Nurse Stoughton was an altogether more stately lady of forty summers and few teeth, greeting me with a stiff bob and something of a sniff. It was hard to tell whether she considered she was rising in the world or falling, when she took a position with a family in a street like this. It was a nuance that dear Mrs Hansard would have discovered in a minute, but I was not sufficiently attuned to. It was clear that she priced my garments and found them and my boots, on which her gaze lingered, authentically shabby.

  ‘Nurse Stoughton, it is imperative that I speak to Mr and Mrs Larwood. It is possible that Nurse Fowler may still be with them. But if she is not, she may know their whereabouts. Do you have her address?’ I floundered in the face of her silence.

  She smiled grimly. ‘She is the daughter of a vicar like yourself, sir, up in Northumberland, so it would trouble you to speak to her urgently if she were up there.’

  ‘Indeed it would.’ I tried the smile with which I was used to charm older ladies. ‘So it is not her family’s address that I need, but her employers’ – assuming that she is still with them.’

  ‘I know not any reason why she should not be. She is devoted to Miss Emma and she to her.’

  ‘Has she been with the family long?’

  ‘As long as I have been with Miss Augusta, give or take – I was with Madam when she gave birth,’ she added proudly.

  ‘And was Miss Fowler able to help at Miss Emma’s delivery?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘As to that, I think not. Miss Emma was born at Mr Larwood’s family home, she said; she must have been about three months old when they moved here.’

  I knew not why, but I sensed she had said something of importance. ‘Is it possible that you know where that place might be? As I told you, it is vital that I speak with them.’

  She was about to speak but stopped abruptly. ‘I think you ought to ask the master about that,’ she said at last.

  ‘And is he at home?’

  ‘At work.’

  ‘
His wife? I must impress on you that this is of the utmost urgency.’ A coin found its way from my hand to hers.

  ‘Indisposed.’ She was ready to go and close the door. But by some means she must have divined the value of the coin and she thawed enough to say, ‘He works in the City, sir. At a big bank near Charing Cross.’

  ‘At Drummond’s?’ My heart lifted.

  ‘That may be the name.’ She made to return to the house.

  ‘One last thing, Nurse Stoughton – what is your master’s name?’ I allowed myself to offer her what I was beginning to think of as my old ladies’ smile. ‘I can scarce present myself at the bank and ask for a gentleman living in Hans Crescent, can I?’

  She responded with an indulgent sigh. ‘That you couldn’t, Parson. Ask for Mr Thorpe. Mr Edwin Thorpe.’

  ‘My father has banked with old Mr Drummond since before I was in short coats,’ I explained to Edmund, as I came running back to the hackney carriage and urging the jarvey to spring the horses. With persuasion, they managed a desultory trot. ‘He will have no objection to my speaking to his employee, I am sure. At last we will have a reliable informant!’

  ‘Whom the Runners may already have questioned. But I have news for you – this mass of verbiage was not, it seems, simple gossip.’ He opened Mrs Hansard’s letter and tapped it. ‘Oh, my dearest wife, why did you not tell us this in your very first paragraph?’ he apostrophised her in what sounded like exasperation.

  ‘Tell us what?’ I prompted. It was the first time I had ever detected a note of criticism of his wife.

  ‘That they found another secret drawer in the governess’s chest. This one contained a lock of hair, folded into paper. Blond – probably baby hair.’

  I covered my face in an attempt to concentrate. ‘So we are looking for a blond child in the Chamberlain household?’