Eliza unwound her shawl and held her frozen hands to her hot cheeks, then put them over the oven. ‘My pa didn’t have the fire on,’ she said. ‘Neither did my brother. I’ve grown used to being warm all day, living here.’
‘How is your brother?’ I asked. There was a straightforward fondness to the way she spoke about him, but she did not reply immediately, and her face darkened.
‘He ain’t in good health,’ she said.
‘Oh. Then I wish him a swift recovery.’
She thanked me, handing Charlotte a roast chestnut she’d bought, then watching her eat it happily, but the shine in her eyes had gone. Charlotte ate and beamed up at her, and that twinge came again – of envy, and fear – because I knew that she loved her, and one day Eliza would leave, to get married or else find work somewhere more conventional, breaking Charlotte’s heart as she went.
CHAPTER 13
He arrived before noon, and I heard Agnes’s feet in the hall. I stood and went to the looking glass, and tidied my hair and neatened my necklace. My heart hummed, and a year went by before I heard Agnes’s knock at the withdrawing room door, during which I sat, and stood, then sat again.
‘Mrs Callard.’ Doctor Mead was smiling as he stepped into the room. Then I noticed shadows beneath his eyes and a dusting of stubble at his jaw.
‘You are tired,’ I said.
‘Am I? I suppose I am.’
‘You have not slept?’
He sighed and took the seat opposite mine. ‘Winter is always brutal. Four children at the Foundling have died since January. The last was buried this morning.’ Tiny lines had appeared at the edges of his eyes, like cracks in plaster.
‘That is dreadful. I am sure you did all you could. And winter is finally leaving us now, besides.’
He nodded without conviction, and sipped his tea. I searched for a topic to divert him. ‘How goes the auction?’
‘It limps on like a half-dead mule.’
‘But your grandfather passed weeks ago.’
‘Yes, and it shows no sign of ending. When I am not at the hospital I spend all my time at his house, helping my mother and sisters to comb through his things like a mudlark, meeting with the auctioneers and packaging things for the Exeter Exchange. Tomorrow the library will be valued. There are thousands of books – more than a man could read in ten lifetimes. It’s quite the circus.’ He gave a great yawn.
‘Oh dear,’ was all I could say. ‘You’ve no aunts or uncles who can help?’
‘None living, so it falls to my mother.’
I stroked the little varnished box tucked secretly between my skirts. Was now the right time? I decided that it was.
‘This is a gift from me,’ I said, handing it to him, and feeling my heart flutter again. He took it, looking at me in a curious, childlike way, and our fingers touched. I watched him open the lid and unwrap the silk parcel inside.
‘It’s a mourning brooch,’ I said as it fell out onto his palm. It had arrived that morning, and was just as I’d hoped: oval-shaped enamel, inlaid with an engraving of a young man in a tricorn hat setting a wreath on a marble plinth. There were tiny words the size of pinheads on the plinth that read: Friendship in Marble, Injuries in Dust, and propped against it was a gold-topped walking cane, for the late doctor never took a step without his, and was quite famous for it.
I watched his face as he gazed upon it. It was unreadable. He spent so long regarding it I thought he had fallen into a reverie, and was about to ask if he was quite well when he looked suddenly at me, his eyes shining with tears. He was quite speechless, and nodded his thanks, and I found tears at my own eyes. It felt, then, as though my heart left my body altogether.
I composed myself. ‘I know they are rather feminine articles, so do not feel obliged to wear it. It’s more a keepsake. I have one that I cherish very dearly, which I take out every so often to look at.’
‘The cane. His cane.’ He was smiling properly now, where it reached his eyes, and I realised he had not managed this in weeks.
‘It is gold leaf. I could not resist.’
He tucked the box inside his green frock coat. I poured more tea and stirred in the sugar, and with the sounds of Devonshire Street drifting in from below I felt quite content.
‘There is a bit of space in the hall I have meant for years to fill with a picture,’ I went on. ‘I should still like to buy one of your grandfather’s pieces, if they have not all been sold.’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘What sort of thing would you like? A landscape? A Hogarth? Name your scene – I’m sure he’ll have it.’
I smiled. ‘You may surprise me. Name your painting, and your price.’
‘Very well. My mother will likely have me bid against the whole of Mayfair, but I shall win your prize, Mrs Callard.’
‘What will happen to his house?’
‘He left it to me. I had the idea of turning it into a medical school, so physicians might study there.’
‘I think that sounds marvellous, and exactly what he would have wanted.’
‘Yes. I imagine he would rather have liked the idea of it becoming a place of learning.’
‘Would you not live in it, though, and give up your lease on Bedford Row?’
He considered the question. ‘His house is large. It would be wasted on a man with no family.’
I set my cup gently on my saucer. My throat felt thick. ‘Is that something you want?’
He sighed. ‘Perhaps. There is something that I want more, though.’
I was very still. ‘And what is that?’ It came out as a whisper.
He stared at the empty hearth, with its pyramid of fresh wood, and his eyes were thoughtful. ‘I would like nothing more than to walk, with no direction, under an open sky, with a hot pie in my hand, and be away from auctioneers, and my mother and sisters, and drawing rooms and Great Ormond Street, and sick and dying children, for one afternoon. I wish to see trees and flowers and no carriages, and not have a single person stop me and offer their condolences, or ask me about an ailment their father’s brother’s wife’s cousin has, or tell me about their unmarried niece, who just happens to be visiting London, and am I looking for a wife? Because I have a great many assets, and a good profession and family, and an unbetrothed man in possession of all those things is rarer than a white peacock.’
I was quite silent. And then I said: ‘I have read they have white peacocks at the Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens.’
He stared at me, and then he began laughing: a hearty, rolling, delighted laugh that brought such great joy that I could not help but laugh, too, though I had been entirely serious. Tears ran down our faces, and after a minute or two we collected ourselves, and sat back holding our stomachs, feeling quite giddy.
‘Then that settles it,’ he said, wiping his eyes. ‘There I shall go. I wish you would join me.’ I shifted in my seat, but before I could murmur my excuses, he went on: ‘But I shall not ask it of you.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor Mead.’ I meant it.
He was watching me with an expression so tender I had to look away. What he wanted was the simplest thing in the world: to walk together, arm in arm. It was the most ordinary desire, yet I could not do it for him. If only I could, I would bid him wait while I ran upstairs for my hat, and meet him at the front door, pulling my gloves on and asking if we should take his carriage or mine, thinking nothing of it, looking forward to it, even. For most people, leaving their house was as uncomplicated as writing a letter or eating a meal.
‘You must have somebody to go with,’ I told him.
‘There is nobody with whom I wish to walk in companionship,’ he said. ‘And a man may not attend a pleasure garden alone without attracting attention of an undesirable kind.’
‘Yes, you must beware of thieves and opportunists,’ I warned.
He laughed again, and I knew at once what he had meant, and turned scarlet at my own unworldliness.
‘Eliza will go with you,’ I announced suddenly. I’d said it
almost before I had thought it, and when the words came from my lips they surprised us both.
‘Eliza?’ he said. ‘Your Eliza?’
‘Yes. This afternoon. I can spare her for an hour or two, if that is what you wish to do.’
He considered it, and set his saucer carefully on the table. ‘That would be splendid. Are you quite sure?’
‘Quite. She is a London girl, and very capable. You will be safe with her. Let me fetch her.’
I found the two of them in the dining room, pretending to take tea while Charlotte read aloud. An old children’s magazine was open between them on the table, and I listened in the doorway as she read in her halting voice: ‘A woman who was just by came up to her, and asked her whose little girl she was. “I am”, ans-ans-answered she, “Miss Biddy Johnson, and I have lost my way”. “Oh,” says the woman. “You are Mr Johnson’s girl, are you? My husband is looking after you, to carry you—”’
‘Eliza?’ They looked up, startled. Eliza had been as absorbed in Biddy Johnson as the child. The story was one of Charlotte’s favourites, about a young girl lost in the streets of London. ‘Could you step into the withdrawing room a moment? Doctor Mead is here.’
All the colour drained from her face. She stood slowly, pushing the chair in and placing a reassuring hand on Charlotte’s shoulder.
‘Are you unwell?’ I asked in alarm.
She shook her head, and Charlotte got down from her chair, too, as though to follow her. I decided not to protest and led them upstairs.
‘Doctor Mead would like a companion to accompany him on a walk this afternoon, and I think you are just the person for it,’ I told her. Her face, which had been furrowed with anxiety, smoothed at once.
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs Callard has told me of the fabled white peacocks at the pleasure gardens in Chelsea, and I am afraid I am too curious.’
‘Oh,’ said Eliza.
‘Can I go?’ said Charlotte.
All of us turned to her in surprise, quite forgetting she had been there, stitched to her nursemaid’s side. Her face was determined.
‘I would be very happy to have the young Miss Callard’s company as well,’ he replied. ‘If her mother would allow it?’
‘Certainly not,’ I said automatically. Charlotte fixed me with a look that was quite unnerving. There was violent hatred in it, as well as fear and resignation – a rather disarming combination, and one that made me falter. ‘She goes only to church,’ I said. ‘She has never been to Drake Street, let alone Chelsea.’ I imagined my map book on its shelf in the parlour. I knew vaguely where Chelsea was, in the countryside west of the city, probably half an hour or longer in a carriage. It was unthinkable. ‘It is too far,’ I said.
‘Please let me go, Mama!’
‘No, and I shall hear no more about it.’
She burst into sobs so luxuriant that the three of us could only watch in horror. Eliza got quickly to her knees to calm the child, and wipe her wet face.
‘I do not want to be shut up here for ever,’ she sobbed, through great tearing breaths. ‘I want to go outside!’
I was speechless. I should have gone to her and comforted her, but I could only stand open-mouthed as Eliza shushed and murmured, holding her and dabbing at her face with a handkerchief.
‘Please!’ Charlotte cried. ‘I want to go with you.’
I had never asked her if she wished to go outside. She was six years old – in another six she would begin to grow into a young woman. I was preparing her for a life like mine, where nothing bad could happen to her. And yet she played in the yard, and peered beneath the curtain in the carriage, and always sat at the windows looking out. Was it right to keep her like a songbird, one who sang only for me?
‘Please, Mama.’ Her sobs were hiccuping and frantic now, from where she sat on Eliza’s lap on the carpet.
Everybody was looking at me, waiting, and after a very long time, I nodded: a tiny, discreet movement, but one they all saw, which changed the atmosphere immediately. Charlotte ran to me and hugged my skirts, and I gave her a brief pat on the head.
‘You must take great care of her,’ I told them. ‘Neither of you are to let her out of your sight, or let go of her hand. You will return her home by four o’clock. Do you understand?’
They both nodded, and exchanged a triumphant glance.
‘You are to walk either side of her at all times, and resist speaking to anybody. The road to Chelsea – is it quite safe?’
‘Very much so,’ Doctor Mead said. ‘I’ll have my carriage drop us at the gates, and collect us at three o’clock.’
I could not bear the tender way he was looking at me, because it confirmed what I long suspected: he thought that I was cruel for keeping Charlotte inside, and that letting her out was right.
He came to me now, and took my own hand in his warm one. ‘She will be safe. You have my word in marble.’ At first I wondered what he meant, then remembered the memento mori: Friendship in Marble, Injuries in Dust.
As soon as I turned the key in the lock behind them, my stomach became a wriggling mass of serpents. I went from the dark hallway to the dining room window to look out, just in time to see Doctor Mead’s carriage pull away. The horses gleamed, and the wheels began turning, and in seconds they were out of sight. I stood for the longest time at the window, trying to breathe evenly. It was a perfect March day: bright and blue, with a friendly wind that tossed hemlines and tugged at hats. I could almost taste the freshness of it, could feel the sunlight flood my eyes. I opened the window a fraction, and suddenly everything was louder and closer. Devonshire Street was no thoroughfare, but at once its proximity was overwhelming.
A strawberry seller wandered past, stopping in front of the house and proffering her basket. ‘Care for a dozen, my lady?’
I almost died of fright, and pulled the pane down with a crash. I had made a terrible mistake.
I called out for Agnes, and heard her feet on the stairs, then her moony face appeared in the doorway. My throat began to close, and my chest was tight, and she helped me into a chair. ‘Should we send someone after them?’ I asked. ‘It might not be too late.’
‘They’ll be halfway to Saint Giles by now, madam,’ she said.
‘Charlotte has never . . . she’s never . . .’
‘I know, madam, but she’ll be in safe hands with the doctor. Heavens, if anything were to happen, who better to have as company? And her nursemaid with her, too. She’ll be well cared for, you know that, else you wouldn’t have let her go, now, would you? Let me fetch you something to soothe your nerves.’
I put my hands on my knees and tried to breathe deeply. When I felt her press a glass into my hand I drank deeply. I felt the sting in my throat and the fire in my belly.
‘Try not to worry, madam. ’Tis a marvellous thing you did, letting Charlotte go and exercise out of doors. She’s a lucky thing, she is, that little girl.’
‘Is she?’
‘Course. She’ll come back full of stories about where she’s been and all she saw.’
‘She will?’
‘Oh, that she will, madam. And she’ll sleep sound tonight, mark my words.’
‘She has not been without me her whole life. And she wanted to go, Agnes. To hear her, you would think I am her gaoler!’
‘Here, have another sip. There we are. Why don’t you go and rest, and I’ll have Maria send up a cup of chocolate. I’ve dressed your bed, all fresh and white as a snowdrift.’
‘Do you think Mr Callard would want her to live like this?’ I stared blankly at the wall. ‘Do you think he would wish for her to be ordinary?’
There was a pause. ‘You are doing a fine job, madam. You’re doing the very best you can.’
They were not the same thing.
In the parlour, my map book lay open on the table. I had asked Doctor Mead’s coachman to show me the exact route he would take: south to High Holbourn, then through St Giles and down Oxford Street, cra
wling west until the city fell away to fields. I crouched over the book and traced it with a finger. Little streets and alleys led off the route, like so many thoughts. Even on a bright day like today, Doctor Mead could never know what sinister threats lurked: who watched them, flattened against a wall, or followed them at a distance. I felt my throat begin to close again, and quickly turned the book’s pages at random, trying to lose myself in a map of east Surrey.
I looked at the clock: they had been gone twenty minutes. Doctor Mead had told me he expected them to arrive at half-past one, and at three o’clock they would return to the carriage and travel back the way they had come. So then: I had two and a half hours to fill. It had been two or three months since I’d cleaned my parents’ pictures, so I sent for a mixture of vitriol, borax and water, put on an apron and gloves and covered the withdrawing room table in an old sheet. I took them down from the picture rail and set them together on the table, side by side, and chatted to them while I began brushing them gently with the mixture: first Father, then Mother, admiring how the artist had captured Mother’s playfulness, and the witty way her mouth turned up at one corner. Perhaps he had been in love with her, for he had not reproduced my father’s essence the same way. But there were things only I knew that no picture could capture: how he had smelled of pipe tobacco, and hummed old sailors’ songs when he climbed the staircase, smoothing the banister with his large hand. Watching the house being packed had been excruciating; I had stood in doorways as dust sheets were thrown over busts and tables, while indifferent men combed the rooms to value our home and our lives, directed by Aunt Cassandra. Worse, though, was the way these men looked at me, as though I was damaged, for at the time I could not speak, and walked about the rooms like a shadow.
Years later, Ambrosia told me a rumour she’d heard from the village: that I had died, too, and the young girl with the flour-white face and haunted eyes was a ghost. I was envious of my sister, not for her smart brougham, or her house, or even for her confidence and the easy way with which she moved through the world. No, I was envious only of the way she saw the fourteenth of June as an ordinary day on the calendar, perhaps with a fleeting sadness at our parents’ passing, if she remembered at all. The significance of the day might enter her head and leave just as quickly, for she had no memory of it to linger, or stain, or poison. To change the course of her life.
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