Gently Sir Jacob said, his voice thick with emotion, “I miss her too, Emmie. Our little Maria was too good for this earth.”
Woodforde watched Emmeline with compassion in his brown eyes. She looked away from him.
“How frightening for the child,” Miss Gottschalk said, breaking the tension of the moment. “To be seized by a stranger and forced to sit on his lap!”
“But we all thought she would know it was Uncle,” Emmeline said with a watery smile, her voice thick with emotion. “I did, though indeed I was two years older than poor Maria.” She cleared her throat. “Well, Uncle, shall we get along with this nut-cracking nonsense?”
It turned into a comical evening. Miss Purley and Mr. Fulmer’s nuts burned quietly together, but at the last minute his nut incinerated and fell though the grate. Every pair after that seemed destined to a fiery fate. Lady Clara and Mr. Jeffcock’s nuts popped clear to opposite ends of the hearth, and she exclaimed the tradition was already proving more wisdom than the humans involved had yet shown.
Mr. Wilkins’s was knocked all the way out of the fire by an explosion of Miss Gottschalk’s, which caused uproarious laughter at Wilkins’s expense. He blustered and became red in the face and stumped away to the other end of the room, saying he would no longer participate in silly children’s games if they were going to become nasty. Miss Gottschalk smiled to herself and murmured, “Silly children’s games hide much wisdom, yes?”
Sir Jacob insisted on putting two in the fire for himself and Fidelity, and they burned side by side in harmony, roasting in eternity together, he said with a laugh. He took her hand, kissed it, and said, “I would never try to take Jean Marc’s place, my dear, you know that. We will remain but good friends.” She smiled through tears and put her head on his shoulder.
It was Emmeline and Woodforde’s turn. The doctor smiled and said, “Would you do the honors, Miss St. Germaine?”
“Do I have a choice, Woodforde, since my uncle has been so pointed about inviting an even number of men and women, and all the rest are spoken for?”
He put one hand on his chest and said, “You wound me to the soul. But I, at least, am willing to play along with your uncle’s game.” His eyes, in the flickering candlelight, held an amber light, and his well-shaped lips quirked up in one corner, a half smile that could be meant as mocking or lighthearted. “Are you afraid what it will foretell? Do you take it so seriously that you are not willing?”
“Of course I’m willing,” Emmeline said, casting their hazelnuts into the fire as the others laughed and cheered.
“The final pair,” Fidelity said, clapping her hands together and then clasping them.
Gillies had accompanied the ladies because Emmeline was worried that Fidelity would fidget herself into tears given the plan for after the party. She sat in the kitchen while the cook, an old friend and Scottish also, worked, proofing bread dough for the next day and finishing other tasks. The little scullery maid, Polly, did as she was told, stoking the fire, finishing scrubbing pots, then waiting for her next orders.
She was sent to the larder for a quartern loaf of bread, as they were “going to have a bit of toast to make sure the preserves were edible,” as Cook said with a smile. Though her name was Morag, and Gillies called her so, to the household she was just Cook.
“She’s a pretty little lass,” Gillies said, finishing mending a piece of lace cuff that had torn. She folded it and put it in her bag.
“Aye, but too quiet. Started out full o’ life, but she’s suffrin’ a spot o’ homesick, I say. Willnae even talk about hame, nay matter what I say, beyond speaking of a little friend she misses sorely.”
“How did you find her?”
Cook shrugged her heavy shoulders. “’Tis not my doin’, y’ken.”
“Do you ever get homesick, Morag?” Gillies asked, biting a thread and knotting it.
“That I do. Dream about it oft: the mist, the heather, the green all ’round. D’you?”
“Aye, but mostly it’s me boys an’ Fergus and our wee croft that I dream of.” She sighed. “A lifetime ago.” The two sat in silence for a moment until Polly brought back the heavy loaf, which looked larger for being in the arms of one so small and pale. The child had heavy silken hair that was bundled up tight in a white muslin cap, and eyes so blue they were like the sky in Scotland, Gillies thought. She wished she’d had a daughter, but she’d had boys … her sturdy, active boys, now on their own and married, with little ones of their own that Gillies would likely never see, since she wasn’t allowed back in Scotland. And then there was wee William, who had died so brutally, his little body so frail after death. The grief had been like a knife in her heart, the pain like nothing she had known, even in childbirth.
“Where have ye gone, Delia?” Cook asked, gently, as she slid thick slices of bread onto the toasting fork and set Polly before the fire to brown them.
Gillies dashed the tears from her eyes and regarded little Polly, so silent and so small. At least there was one child in London she knew had a home. She must help her mistress get the animals who were hurtin’ other wee girls for their own unnatural pleasure.
The rest of the evening was spent with music for some, and conversation for others. Miss Gottschalk played a Haydn piece on the pianoforte. Miss Purley chatted with Lady Clara, who thumbed through sheet music. Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Jeffcock became engaged in a debate about the merit of slave-owning in the colonies.
The plantation owner, of course, came down on the side of the benefits. “It’s how they are happiest,” he said of the enslaved men and women. “They’re like children. On their own they are lost, don’t know what to do with their time. And lazy! Without the whip they’re useless. It’s no wonder the continent of Africa is a benighted wilderness: no culture, no music, no dignity. We give them a home and a purpose.”
Lady Clara’s gaze, steady on her sheet music, was stony; it was clear she heard her fiancé and chose to say nothing. But what could she say? She had made her choice with open eyes. Emmeline fought the inclination to despise her for it.
“I cannot disagree more,” Wilkins replied. “S’pose they’re like any other people on the planet. Give a man—or woman—his wage, I say, and make them responsible for their own living conditions outside of work. You can benefit then from their necessities. Whereas you, sir, must feed and clothe your workers,” he pointed out, poking the taller man in his waistcoat. “The factory owner here has nothing to do with them once they are off the property. I get to charge them what I will to have a place to lay their head. I earn more rent from one crumbling room in St. Giles than from any number of rooms in another part of the city. Desperation forces people to do much to secure a place to lay their heads. Now that is proper commerce!”
Emmeline knew that if she did not stop listening she would go mad. What kind of man did her uncle employ? Wilkins was disgusting, and so was Jeffcock. But Sir Jacob’s home was not the place for her to engage in a political argument. She walked out of earshot and joined the circle around her uncle. Fidelity was there, as was Mr. Fulmer. She took a low stool near the fire.
While the others were deep in conversation, Sir Jacob moved to a low chair beside her. “My dearest niece, what is on your mind this evening?”
Searching his eyes, she asked, “Uncle Jacob, how can you employ such a man as Wilkins? He speaks of the poor as if they are merely cogs in the machinery of finance, tools in his pursuit of wealth. Between him and Jeffcock, the slave-owner, there is little to choose.”
“I cannot hold myself accountable for the opinions and behavior of every man with whom I have dealings. Surely you see that, Emmie?”
“But you employ him as your man of business.” She fought the urge to expose Wilkins’s dealings with Sir Henry Claybourne; there was no legitimate way she could know that, and her uncle would wonder. “With such opinions as he holds, do you not fear he is lacking in morality
in other ways? Such as his handling of your money?”
“Oh, don’t worry, my dear,” Sir Jacob said, winking and patting her hand. “I have a very tight lock on my money and am extremely careful. He is my tool, not my master. I use him to handle my investments—with his legal training, he is able to draft company contracts and the like—but he has little real power. In name he is the director of the company, but I give him little to do.”
“The Maidenhead Canal Company … is that what you speak of?”
He nodded.
“I understand Woodforde is one of your investors. He told me you were reluctant to allow him to invest at first, and that your company has yet to break ground on the canal. For someone as industrious as Woodforde, that is frightfully discouraging. Perhaps he would be a better director of your company than Wilkins. He’d move the plan along more rapidly.”
“Woodforde would not want that involvement, trust me on that, my dear,” Sir Jacob replied. “I discouraged his investing because of his diligence, as you say, though I call it impatience. I intend to invite him to remove his investment, since I am loath to promise him any return in a timely manner. Some things move more slowly than a young man has patience for.”
Emmeline brooded on what was always on her mind: the tangled web of the abuse of little girls by men who should be protecting their interests. It wasn’t easy to speak of, and she had not intended to raise the topic, but Sir Jacob had long been her trusted sounding board. “Uncle, I have been reading the papers lately, and there is much about Sir Henry Claybourne’s death. Some are saying he was … that he abused little girls in his household. I know, though I am not supposed to”—she cast him a guilty look; young ladies of her delicacy were supposed to read aught but the society and gossip pages—“that little girls as young as ten or eleven serve as prostitutes. You are a judge—”
“In the Court of Common Pleas, my dear,” Sir Jacob said sharply. “I have nothing to do with such things as the welfare of children. And you are correct; you should not know, nor should you be discussing such things.”
He was perturbed; she could see it in his beetling brows and downturned mouth. It was hideously inappropriate for her to raise such a topic at all, much less in such surroundings, but it seemed trivial to mind about such delicacy when their world was what it was. “I know you would prefer I don’t see those kind of articles—”
“And if you lived with Leopold, as you should, you would be more protected. What have you been up to, Emmie, that you are saying such things?”
She didn’t answer.
“Fidelity, as a widow and with more knowledge of the world, should be shielding you from such knowledge!”
“Fidelity, protect me?” Emmeline burst out. “Surely you know her better than that, Uncle? It is I who shield her much of the time. She is delicate; I am strong.”
“You have become full of yourself, Emmeline. It is unattractive and unfeminine, and no man, not even Woodforde, will want you if you continue so. Perhaps it is time Leopold takes more of an interest in your life in London.” Sir Jacob cleared his throat, took a long drink of his port, and met her gaze. “I won’t have my lovely party ruined by such talk. You are at risk of becoming … coarse.” He returned to his other guests, making the rounds among them, chatting and drinking copious amounts of wine.
Stricken, she watched him go. Woodforde sauntered over from the bookcase, where he had been reading titles, and sat in a chair nearby. “What has upset your uncle?”
“I said something that offended him.”
“Odd, given the topics of discussion among his guests. What could you say that would be worse? I heard Jeffcock and Wilkins debating with great spirit the merits of owning human beings or merely exploiting them financially while working them from cradle to grave. I was surprised you did not join in and abuse both as inhuman idiots.”
“I had to walk away; I could not abuse them in my uncle’s home, though both richly deserve it. I do have some manners, Woodforde, though I think Uncle Jacob would disagree with me this moment.” She watched her uncle. He usually indulged her outré behavior, but this time she had gone too far. She bit her lip and took out her fan, waving it languidly in front of her face to hide the tears that welled. He had always been more father to her than her own had ever been, and though she knew her questioning would unsettle him, she hadn’t thought he would censure her so brusquely. She had lost her sense of proportion, perhaps, as to how to moderate herself in polite society.
“If you like, I will thrash both Wilkins and Jeffcock some other time and place. I have never seen two men who deserved it more.”
Emmeline cast a quick glance at him and smiled in surprise. “Those two do deserve a thorough thrashing. However, I am learning to put my efforts into the root problems rather than the resulting inhumanity.”
“Root problems?”
“How can we laugh and drink and flirt when all around us there are humans whose lives are such a misery that it is … it’s unbearable. Woodforde, there are little servant girls in this very city forced into cruel situations by men who make money from their misery.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but there was sympathy in his eyes, not condemnation. “I don’t see how us being miserable can help them. The world is full of such sorrows, Emmie,” he said gently. “Some of us try to help where we can, but making ourselves ill with worry or so low as to admit defeat in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds … how does it help those downtrodden?”
“I don’t suppose it does. But seeing little children exploited for the sexual gratification of men … how can we turn a blind eye?”
“I’ve known you since you were ten, Emmie, and yet you astonish me all the time. One never gets bored speaking with you. Shocked on occasion, appalled and frightened, but never bored.”
She bit the inside of her cheek; so often innocuous words felt like barbed weapons. She was being laughed at, indulged, and condemned all at once. “I thought I had lost that ability, Woodforde. But prepare to be shocked and appalled even more.” She would not be silenced, and so told him what she knew and surmised about the men who bought and sold little girls’ innocence. “It’s disgusting, and I don’t know how to stop it. Or if anyone can stop it. Is it even illegal to purchase little girls for sexual favors as one does an adult woman? I don’t know, and as a female no one will talk to me about it!”
Woodforde’s face was twisted into an expression of extreme distaste. His voice guttural and gruff with emotion, he said, “How have you learned of such shocking occurrences?”
“I … someone in my lady’s group was trying to help a girl escape such a situation. She told us about it. The girl had been brought from an orphanage for just such a purpose.”
“I’ve seen little girls plying their trade near Haymarket, but never once did I ponder what had brought them to such a low place. And yet you say men are buying them from orphanages. It’s disgusting.” He frowned and shook his head. “I never thought of it as something that could be stopped or changed. How can I call myself a man of conscience when I’ve never even thought to question their lives?” He looked down at his well-formed, sensitive hands, twisted together over a handkerchief. As a physician, he never used those hands to slice into a patient; that was left to surgeons, mere workmen. “Beasts such as that, who would buy and sell little girls like … like weanlings, should not be allowed to live.”
“Do you want to help?” she asked him, touched by his vehemence.
“With all my heart,” he said, putting one of his warm hands over hers. “But how?”
“By seeking the truth, discovering firsthand how those children live. Come see us in Chelsea tomorrow evening,” she said quickly, glancing over at her uncle. “I’ll tell Fidelity that you will take me to the All Saints’ Day evening service. Do you promise to behave as if I am a rational being and not a hothouse flower for the whole evenin
g?”
“I will do my best. You wish me to take you to the church service?”
“No, of course not, Woodforde. That is just the excuse we will use for you taking me out in the evening.”
“Where am I taking you?”
“I’ll tell you then. As a physician and a man of means, you can help. My group of ladies is doing its best to put a stop to this tragedy, but I find myself alone in some of my most shocking plans.”
She looked up and saw her uncle watching them. He nodded and smiled, presumably having put aside his anger with her. She felt her face color; how unfortunate it was that the hazelnuts she and Woodforde had cast had burned together brightly, glowing and melding into one until they turned to ash. Silly tradition. Little did her uncle know that the warmth between them had been fired by a conscience stirred to action by social injustice, not by any personal feeling.
The party was soon enough over. As they were waiting for their cloaks, Lady Clara moved to Emmeline’s side. “Will you take me home?” she muttered swiftly. “I am in Belgravia.”
“Did Mr. Jeffcock not bring you?”
“He did.” Her face was white and her expression anguished. “Please, Miss St. Germaine … I know we do not have a friendship, but I would deem it a great favor if you would take me. You have a carriage, correct? And go to Chelsea? It would not take you much out for your way.”
Taken aback, Emmeline turned to face her in the dimly lit entry, where they awaited their carriages as Sir Jacob made his rounds, saying good evening to all of his guests. “I would be delighted to offer you room in my carriage. I meant not to protest, but was taken by surprise.”
The young lady turned as her fiancé approached and said loudly, “I shan’t need your accompaniment home, Elijah. Miss St. Germaine quite insists that she drop me off on her way to Chelsea. See … here is Madame la Comtesse Bernadotte as companion, so all is quite proper for two young unmarried ladies. More proper than you taking me in a closed carriage, engaged though we are.”
A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder Page 22