‘Have you been flirting with our host?’ Lydia’s laughter-filled voice rose above the clatter of china and the low murmur of conversation as Flora joined her. ‘He always makes such a fuss of you. I swear you must be his favourite.’
‘He’s such a caricature of the archetypical French waiter.’ Flora took the chair opposite. ‘It’s all I can do not to laugh whenever I see him.’
‘Indeed, a prince among the teacups instead of the wine cellar,’ Lydia said. ‘Not that one ever knows what people are hiding.’
‘You think he has secrets?’ Flora frowned, half joking.
‘Not him specifically, but I’ve heard,’ she lowered her voice, though there was little chance of her being overheard above the clatter of crockery and constant hum of voices, ‘there’s a tea room owner in Piccadilly who runs a brothel in the apartment above the shop.’
‘Where do you hear such things?’ Flora tugged off her gloves, her eyes widening.
‘Here and there,’ Lydia shrugged. ‘Shocking, don’t you think?’
‘And distasteful.’ Flora didn’t know whether to believe her or not, though Lydia seemed to have a firm grasp on the grittier side of London life. They had met whilst Flora had uncovered a pair of Serbian spies the previous year, one of whom had been the headmistress of the Ladies’ Academy where Lydia worked. Since the woman’s incarceration, Lydia had run the school with an aplomb that had surprised everyone but Flora.
‘What about that woman over there?’ Lydia cocked her chin at a woman in emerald green who sat below a large gilt mirror. ‘She’s quite alone and no one has approached her since she arrived. Do you think she’s waiting to be chosen by some predatory businessman who—’
‘Lydia!’ Flora pressed her knuckles to her mouth to hide a smile, only to raise her eyebrows when a portly older woman joined the lady in green.
‘Maybe not a lady of the night then.’ Lydia shrugged in mild disappointment. ‘Though our amiable Frenchman does encourage Emmeline Pankhurst’s acolytes.’ She nodded at a group of women clustered around a table in the bay window, their heads close together in earnest conversation. ‘They come in here all the time. I’ll wager they’re plotting to wave banners outside Parliament and throw eggs at the politicians.’
‘I don’t approve of the Women’s Political and Social Union,’ Flora darted the group a quick look. ‘They are too fierce with their policy of civil disobedience. If they start doing what they threaten, they’ll put the suffragist movement back years.’
‘Maybe it’s just posturing,’ Lydia suggested. ‘Though Mrs Pankhurst has been dragged away by the police several times this year for her public protests.’
‘I know. Millicent Fawcett must be so disheartened. After all her years of lobbying the government with debate and rational argument, suddenly her cause has been ambushed by these radicals who want to shock the government into submission.’
‘I could not bring myself to harass politicians in the street,’ Lydia feigned an exaggerated shudder. ‘I would die of embarrassment if anyone I knew saw me.’
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t stare at them like that,’ Flora warned. ‘They might take us for potential recruits. Or worse, parliament spies.’
‘Don’t!’ Lydia shivered once more. ‘Come to think of it, you haven’t been to a NUWSS meeting for weeks.’
‘I know,’ Flora grimaced, apologetic. ‘I’m a dreadful slacker.’
‘I didn’t mean to criticize.’ Lydia’s hazel eyes rounded in mortification. ‘You have little Arthur to look after as well as that delicious husband of yours. It’s no wonder you have no time for us suffragists.’
‘More like laziness, I’m afraid. It’s not as if I am particularly busy either. I have so much help in the house, I find myself twiddling my thumbs these days.’ Milly’s disapproving face jumped into Flora’s head, but she pushed it away. ‘Are you still an avid supporter now that you and Harry are engaged?’
‘I could never marry a man who did not support the movement,’ Lydia replied. ‘Harry wouldn’t want me to abandon the cause either, though he’s been distracted lately.’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, I haven’t told you, have I? Harry’s uncle gave him a house in Kensington.’
‘He gave it to him? Lydia, how come you have not mentioned it before? That’s wonderful.’
‘Because Harry didn’t tell me until this week. He says it’s not that impressive, that his uncle has owned it for years but left it empty. It’s in a poor state of repair so he thought I would be disappointed. He was wrong of course, and the location is lovely, right behind the gardens. When I told him I thought it would be perfect, Harry agreed to have it renovated.’
‘What about your own house in Kinnerton Street? Won’t you miss it?’ Flora loved the compact, three story villa Lydia had inherited from her parents. ‘Or isn’t that grand enough for the Flynn clan?’
Lydia grimaced. ‘You’ve summarized it perfectly. His uncle’s house is twice the size of mine, but is very old fashioned. It doesn’t even have gas lighting let alone electricity—’ She broke off, midsentence, her features sharpening in warning as Mr Martell approached their table, a tray balanced on one hand.
‘I’ve brought your tea personally, Madame ’Aarreengton.’ He laid the crockery in front of her employing a series of theatrical gestures. ‘’ow is your husband and that adorable bébé?’
‘They’re both in excellent health, thank you.’ His mangling of her name grated on Flora’s ears. Also, as far as she could recall, Mr Martell had not laid eyes on either Bunny or their infant son. ‘Our son is thriving. How kind of you to ask.’
‘I take a keen interest in my clientele, chère madame.’ His shiny black eyes surveyed the room as he spoke. ‘I like to think of you all as more than mere patrons.’
Flora inclined her head in acknowledgment, while Lydia feigned interest in a flower arrangement on the table. An awkward pause developed in which Lydia rolled her eyes as a signal of impatience. ‘Um, Mr Martell, could I ask you to aside two of your millefeuille cakes to take away?’
‘But of course, though not your usual taste, so they must be a treat for that perky little maid of yours who often accompanies you?’
‘You have been paying attention.’ Flora inclined her head at him, but her sarcasm seemed to pass him by, until finally, the Frenchman took the hint, bowed and backed away.
‘I wasn’t rude was I?’ Flora asked, uneasy. ‘But he can be quite intrusive at times.’
‘Not at all, simply imperious. Like any lady would be. As I said, you’re one of his favourites. And another thing, if I ever have to take a post as a lady’s maid, I shall apply to you. Cream cakes indeed.’
‘It was all I could think of to distract him. Which will delight Sally, though goodness knows what my mother-in-law would say if she knew. She believes servants need little more than gruel and day-old bread to survive.’
Lydia glanced past Flora’s shoulder and frowned. ‘He’s still staring at us. But then I would be bored too taking orders for tea all day.’
‘You’ve been shopping, I see?’ Flora changed the subject, dismissing the Frenchman entirely. ‘How are the plans for your wedding progressing?’ She took a sip of her tea, closing her eyes briefly as the hot, fragrant liquid relaxed her.
After the investigation into the murder of Evangeline Lange that had brought Flora and Lydia together, Lydia had become engaged to Evangeline’s fiancé, Harry, a development not entirely unexpected to all who knew them.
‘Slowly.’ Lydia studied her over the rim of her teacup she held in both hands. ‘It won’t be a grand affair either. I’ve no living relatives other than my aunt in Holborn. Besides, Harry’s more distant family might not even come to the ceremony.’
‘I take it they disapprove?’
‘Not openly. But I cannot blame them. I’m not the catch Evangeline was. I’m a schoolteacher, not an heiress.’
‘You’re a headmistress at an establishment parents clamour to enrol their daughters at. T
he school could easily have folded after the scandal of the spying incident, but thanks to you it did not. You should be proud of yourself, I know Harry is.’ A charming flush entered Lydia’s peach and cream cheeks. ‘Besides,’ Flora said, eager to reassure her, ‘Harry’s engagement to Miss Lange was arranged by their families. He wasn’t passionately in love with her, not the way he is with you.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Lydia’s high cheekbones turned a darker pink, followed by a shrug intended to be nonchalant but which conveyed an air of despair. ‘You should have seen how his parents reacted when we considered Caxton Hall for the ceremony instead of some medieval ancestral church in the wilds of Norfolk.’
‘Hmm. I can see that wouldn’t be received well.’
‘We compromised eventually and settled on St James’, but there are still some discontented murmurings about the whole thing. That reminds me,’ she glanced up at the wall clock above the counter, ‘I’m meeting him in half an hour.’
‘Don’t for a moment intimate you see yourself as not good enough or you’ll be lost forever.’ Flora lifted the teapot and topped up their cups, aware she was handing out advice she hadn’t heeded herself. Beatrice Harrington’s frequent asides that blamed Flora’s every inadequacy on the fact that she was raised by a country house butler still rankled. That Riordan Maguire was a widower only made things worse, as if this misfortune was in some way Flora’s fault. Since the discovery that she was related to Lord Vaughn, albeit tenuously, her mother-in-law’s attitude had undergone a subtle change. ‘Anyway,’ Flora dropped a lump of sugar into Lydia’s fresh cup of tea, creating ripples across the surface, ‘you have the perfect excuse to buy new clothes, no matter how small the wedding, so make the most of it.’ She plucked a shell-shaped sponge from her plate, her attention caught by a chair at the table to her right.
The couple who had occupied it since her arrival had departed, leaving a copy of that morning’s paper behind; the page folded open to the sketch of Lizzie Prentice, immediately rekindling Flora’s uneasiness about the nurse’s death.
‘Flora? Are you going to eat that cake or simply wave it about?’ Lydia asked.
‘What? Oh, sorry.’ Flora replaced the sponge on her plate. ‘I was thinking about yesterday.’
‘Ah yes, I had forgotten. You and Bunny were going to that children’s hospital in Southwark. How did it go?’
‘We did yes, and it was a most interesting tour, apart from the accident.’
‘What accident?’ Lydia straightened.
‘A student nurse was found dead in the rear yard.’
‘Oh my!’ Lydia’s hand drifted to her throat, the diamond on her engagement ring winking in the light. ‘What happened?’
‘We don’t really know. We were having tea and heard a scream. By the time we got outside, she was just lying there on the cobbles. One of the doctors insisted she had fallen and hit her head, but another one disagreed. What struck me as odd was the way Miss Finch reacted.’ Flora bit into a madeleine, almost groaning as the soft sponge melted on her tongue. ‘These get better each time I come here.’
‘Never mind the cake, I want to hear more about this Miss Flynn.’ Lydia’s spoon clicked against the china as she stirred her tea faster. ‘You wouldn’t have mentioned her unless there was more to it.’
‘Finch. She’s the Matron at St Philomena’s who gave us the tour.’ Flora hesitated. She had been longing to bring up the subject of the matron since she arrived but maybe this wasn’t the time to repeat the conversation she had had with Bunny about her mother. ‘I suspect there was something peculiar about the nurse’s death. I’m convinced Miss Finch thinks so too.’
‘Go on.’ Lydia waited.
‘I overheard the nurse, Lizzie Prentice, ask Miss Finch if she might speak to her. She said it was important. Urgent was the word she used. Less than an hour later she was dead.’
‘Goodness that does sound suspicious.’ Lydia’s eyes widened. ‘Do you know what she wanted to talk about?’
‘No, that’s all I heard.’ Flora paused to wipe crumbs from the corner of her mouth. ‘But looking back, I got the impression Miss Finch already knew what it was about.’
‘What made you think that?’
‘I’m not sure really. After the body was found, she had this look of…’ she paused, searching for an appropriate word. ‘Inevitability. As if she should have done something sooner, and was angry with herself.’
‘Definitely intriguing enough to warrant further investigation.’ Lydia frowned as if pondering the thought. ‘But accidents do happen sometimes, you know.’
‘Now you sound like Bunny, and I need a more sympathetic ear for this next part.’ She inhaled a deep breath and set her cup down, knowing whatever she told Lydia would go no further. ‘This might sound ridiculous, but the second I laid eyes on Miss Finch, I felt I knew her.’
‘Knew her from where?’ Lydia delicately pulled a madeleine apart with slim, elegant fingers, placing a minuscule piece between her lips. ‘And what does this have to do with the nurse’s death?’
‘Actually, nothing, but please hear me out. Miss Finch looks exactly like a photograph I have of my mother when she was younger.’
‘I’m sure lots of people look alike.’ Lydia moved the cake away from her mouth but continued chewing.
‘It’s more than that.’ Flora tried to keep the frustration from her voice. ‘She looks exactly how I imagine my mother would look now.’
‘Flora.’ Lydia sighed and replaced the half of her cake on her plate, fastidiously brushing crumbs from her fingertips. ‘I love you dearly, but listen to yourself. A woman you have just met looks like your mother might have looked had she lived? That doesn’t make sense.’
‘Said like that it does sound ridiculous. Thank you for not laughing anyway.’
‘I would never laugh at you. You haven’t spoken about your mother other than to say that she died when you were young.’ She reached across the table and covered Flora’s hand with her own. ‘Tell me about her.’
‘I don’t remember much, and no one talked about her when I was a child. I was told she had died, but I discovered a couple of years ago that she disappeared.’
‘Disappeared? I assume that means you haven’t accepted that she’s dead?’ Lydia was nothing if not perceptive.
‘I find myself thinking about her a lot, wondering what really happened all those years ago. I even questioned William, but he doesn’t know anything either.’
‘Something tells me these thoughts of yours won’t be going away until you have investigated further?’ Lydia pressed her index finger to a crumb on her plate and brought it to her mouth.
‘You know me too well.’ Flora had had become increasingly preoccupied with the matron of St Philomena’s hospital. At least she had resisted telling William that she believed his first love might not only be alive, but living and working in London. It was bad enough that her own imagination took flight, like Mr Hedges Butler’s balloon, let alone giving him false hope. ‘I was strangely tongue-tied during the tour and Bunny told me off for staring at her. Does that sound fanciful?’
‘That Bunny would tell you off, oh, absolutely.’ Lydia feigned shock.
‘You know what I mean.’ Flora smiled. ‘He thinks it has something to do with my new motherhood. He hasn’t been able to put down Dr Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life since it came out last year. Whenever I use a wrong word or say something out of context, he snatches off his spectacles with a triumphant “Ah-ha”, followed by his theory as to why I have said it.’
‘I do so adore Bunny.’ Lydia’s uninhibited laugh brought enquiring glances from nearby tables. ‘His devotion for you shines from his eyes whenever he looks at you. Makes me quite shivery.’
‘Harry looks at you like that, I’ve seen him.’
‘Maybe.’ Lydia released a heartfelt sight. ‘Though sometimes I wonder if he’s thinking of Evangeline. He was distraught when she was killed, so much so he and her father
haunted the police station for days demanding to know what they were doing to find her killer.’
‘That’s understandable. They suspected Harry for a while, and he had to clear his name.’
‘You don’t think it was more than that?’ Lydia’s eyes pleaded for reassurance. ‘Suppose he never gets over her?’
‘He already has, Lydia, you mean more to him than Evangeline ever did. Theirs was an engagement of assets, not hearts.’
Harry’s engagement to Evangeline Lange had been arranged by their families, one which had been cruelly ended by Evangeline’s murder at the hands of her half-brother. A crime Flora had been instrumental in solving and had almost meant disaster for both herself and Sally. Lydia’s subsequent grief at having lost her close friend and Harry’s guilt at not having protected the woman he was to marry but did not love, had brought them closer together.
‘I suppose so.’ Lydia helped herself to a second madeleine. ‘I can always rely on you to make me feel better, but don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you keep glancing out of the window every few seconds. Are you expecting someone?’
‘No. Not at all.’ Flora was reluctant to insult Lydia by admitting she had invited her as a subterfuge. She owed her more than that. ‘What did you say earlier about meeting Harry?’
‘My goodness, I almost forgot.’ Lydia gasped and her gaze flicked to the clock again. ‘Oh dear, I’m late and I promised I wouldn’t be.’ Taking a final bite of the cake, she discarded the rest of it onto her plate. Her chair screeched across the floorboards as she leapt to her feet and gathered her parcels together. ‘Let me leave you some money.’ She scrabbled in her purse, fumbled and dropped it onto the table.
‘Don’t worry about that, it’s my turn anyway,’ Flora waved her away.
‘You’re so kind, Flora.’ She crammed the purse back into her bag and backed towards the door. ‘We must do this again – soon.’
The doorbell jangled as Lydia hurried out, colliding with a top-hatted gentleman on his way in, forcing him to swerve in order to avoid her, dislodging his hat.
The Forgotten Children Page 7