Little Girl Lost was a simple enough scheme, involving nothing more than for me to stand about conspicuously with a look of forlorn concern upon my face. Worried tears were helpful but not essential, and because they required significant additional energy, and could not easily be reversed if I decided that the wrong fish had been hooked, I deployed them sparingly. It did not take me long to develop a sixth sense for knowing for whom I should make the effort.
When the right sort of gentleman arrived at my side, as he always eventually did, enquiring as to where I lived and why I was alone, I would give him my sad story and a suitably respectable address – though not so grand as to risk recognition – and then allow the fellow to put me in a cab with a fare. It was not difficult to slip my hand inside his pocket while he was Being Helpful. There is a very useful sense of righteous importance that overtakes the renderer of assistance; it tends to overwhelm his better judgement and leave him dull to everything else.
But Little Girl Lost required a lot of standing around in the one place, which I found boring and, in the winter months, cold, wet and unpleasant. I soon realised that there was another way in which I could make the same profit from a position of relative comfort. It also solved the problem of what to do should the Helpful Gentleman insist on seeing me all the way ‘home’. Mrs Mack appreciated ingenuity: she was a natural born scammer and lit up with possibility when presented with a fresh scheme; she had also proven herself clever with a needle and thread. And so, when I told her my idea, she was soon able to procure a pair of fine white kid gloves and alter them to fit my purpose.
Thus was Little Girl Passenger born, and a quiet young thing she was, too, for her job was the opposite of Little Girl Lost. Where the latter had sought attention, Little Girl Passenger’s wish was to avoid it. She was a frequent traveller on the omnibuses, sitting quietly against the window, her delicate kid gloves folded demurely on her lap. Being small, clean and innocent, she was the natural choice of seating partner for a lady travelling alone. But once the lady had relaxed into the journey, distracted by conversation or sightseeing, a book or her posy, the Little Girl’s hands – heretofore tucked well out of sight – would reach between the voluminous folds of merged skirts until they found her pocket or her bag. I can still remember how it felt: the slip of my hand into the pretty lady’s skirt, the coolness of the silk, the smooth, swift sweep of my fingertips, as all the while my false kid gloves sat well beyond reproach upon my lap.
From some of the omnibus drivers, an all-day seat could be procured for a small price. And on days when the conductor couldn’t be bought, Little Girl Lost reprised her role, bereft and frightened on a well-heeled street.
I learned a lot about people during those days. Things like:
1. Privilege makes a person, especially a woman, trusting. Nothing in her experience prepares her for the possibility that anyone might mean her harm.
2. There is nothing so sure as that a gentleman likes to be seen to help.
3. The art of illusion is knowing precisely what people expect to see and then ensuring that they see it.
The French magician in Covent Garden helped me with that final one, for I had done what Lily Millington bade me and watched him closely until I knew exactly how he made those coins appear.
I also learned that should the worst thing happen and a call of ‘Stop! Thief!’ be raised behind me, then London was my greatest ally. For a slight child who knew her way, the thrum and throng of the streets provided the perfect cover; it was easy to disappear amongst the moving forest of legs, particularly when one had friends. Once again, I had Lily Millington to thank for that. There was the man with the sandwich board who could always be counted on to turn it back and forth into the shins of an inconvenient policeman; the organ-grinder whose contraption had an uncanny habit of rolling on its wheels to block my pursuer’s path; and, of course, the French magician, who, along with his coins, had a knack for producing the right wallet at the right time, leaving my chaser indignant and reduced as I slipped away to freedom.
And so, I was a thief. A good thief. Earning my keep.
As long as I returned each day with a few pilfered spoils, Mrs Mack and the Captain were kept happy. She told me many times that my mother had been a real and proper lady, that the ladies I picked from were no better than I was, that it was right that I should feel the weight of quality beneath my fingertips. I suppose she meant to counter the rise in me of any pesky conscience.
She needn’t have bothered. We all do things in life that we regret; stealing trifles from the rich is not high on my list.
I was restless after Jack left my house last night, and he slept fitfully, too, surrendering finally to wakefulness in the light mauve of dawn. It is the day of his meeting with Sarah and he has been dressed for hours. He has made a special effort with his clothing, and the items sit uncomfortably on him.
There was a carefulness to the way he readied himself. I noticed him stop to rub at an imagined spot on his sleeve and he spent longer than usual in front of the mirror; he shaved and even ran a brush through his wet hair. I have not seen him do that before.
When he was finished, he stood for a moment as if sizing up his own reflection. I saw his eyes shift in the mirror and for a split second I thought that he was looking at me. My heart skipped a beat before I realised that he was looking at the photograph of the two babies. He reached out to touch each one’s face in turn with his thumb.
I assumed at first that his unsettlement was due to today’s meeting, and no doubt, for the most part, it is. But I wonder now whether there might be more to it than that.
He made his cup of tea, spilling half, as is his wont, and then, with a piece of toast in hand, went to his computer on the small round table in the middle of the room. A couple of new emails had appeared in the night, one from Rosalind Wheeler, as promised (threatened), which seemed to comprise a rather lengthy list and a sketch of some kind. Jack’s reaction was to stick a small black contraption in the side of the laptop and press a few buttons before removing the tiny object to his pocket.
I cannot know for certain whether what he found in Rosalind Wheeler’s email is responsible for sending him back inside my house this morning. I went closer after he left the table and saw that the subject line read, ‘Further Instructions: Ada Lovegrove Notes’; but I could not learn anything more because the email above was open, an advertisement for subscription to the New Yorker.
Whatever the case, soon after checking his computer, he fetched his miniature tool kit and unlocked the door to my house again.
He is in here with me now.
He has not done much since his arrival; there is little of determined industry in his movements. He is in the Mulberry Room, leaning against the large mahogany desk that abuts the window. It faces towards the chestnut tree in the middle of the back garden, and beyond that the field barn. But Jack’s focus is on something further still, the distant river, and he wears that troubled expression on his face again. He blinks as I come nearer and his gaze shifts to the meadow, the barn.
I remember lying in the upper level of the barn with Edward that summer, watching the sun stream through the pinprick holes between the roof slates as he whispered to me of all the places in the world he’d like to go.
It was in this very room, on the chaise longue by the fireplace, that Edward told me the details of his plan to paint the Fairy Queen; it was here that he smiled and reached inside his coat pocket, producing the black velvet box and revealing the treasure within. I can still feel the light touch of his fingertips as he fastened that cold blue stone at my throat.
Perhaps Jack is merely seeking distraction – a way to pass the minutes before it is time to leave; certainly, his meeting with Sarah is on his mind, for he glances up at my clock at regular intervals to check the time. When, at last, it delivers the correct answer, he beats a hasty retreat, leaving my house, locking the kitchen door behind him and resetting the alarm, almost before I can catch up.