City of Light

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE



Paris



12: 25 PM



Geraldine and Emma were at 2158 in their step count when they saw Tom and Trevor walking toward them on the bank.

Oh God, Emma thought. The game is up.

But Trevor did not seem angry or indeed even surprised to find the women there. “We need to confer,” he said in greeting, just as nonchalantly if they were all sitting around Geraldine’s table at one of the Tuesday Night Murder Games.

A single look had told Trevor that Geraldine needed a proper sit, and so he pretended exhaustion himself. It didn’t take much pretending. With the men virtually pulling Geraldine, they climbed the bank to the sidewalk above and found a pair of benches on the street. When they had all settled in, Trevor began.

“Chin up, everyone, because I think we’re much closer to finding Rayley than it seems,” Trevor said. “This latest telegram from Davy has changed everything.” He produced the rumpled paper from his pocket and read the brief message to Geraldine and Emma.

“The timeline,” he said, looking up as he finished, “strongly suggests that The Lady of the River is Henry Newlove. He must have come here at Delacroix’s request, or should I say Hammond’s, just after the Cleveland Street raid.”

“Obviously,” said Emma. “For he was dressed in his work garb when he was killed. But why was he killed and by whom? Delacroix, or should I say Hammond, had reasons to dispose of Patrick Graham, but why would he drown one of his own employees, his long time second-in-command?”

“For simplicity’s sake, let’s agree to call the man Delacroix,” said Trevor, “and I have no idea why he might have turned on Henry or if he is even the one to have done the deed. But the fact that Henry Newlove, a known boy-girl and about eighteen years of age, arrived in Paris the day before the Lady of the River was found cannot be coincidental.”

“That’s one piece,” Emma said. “And here’s another. While Gerry and I were walking the bank we encountered a prostitute wearing an obviously expensive outfit in various shades of plum, just as Rayley had described Isabel’s clothing on the day they climbed the tower. The woman told us she had gotten these clothes from a client in payment, who in turn had gotten them in a trade for his own. He had swapped his own workman’s clothes for those of a beautiful woman he met in a bar. Are you still following me?”

Tom and Trevor nodded.

“The woman in the bar had been weeping,” Emma continued. “She was carrying a suitcase, and was most certainly Isabel Blout. The bar was called The Laughing Woman, if you’d like a further piece of irony in our little story, and it’s located here, in the river district.”

“So we’ve drawn close to Isabel too,” Tom said. “She’s somewhere in this very ghetto, dressed as a man.”

“It all leads me to wonder,” said Emma, “is it possible that Isabel and Rayley are together? Based on the fact they disappeared the same morning, many people have assumed as much and we’ve been the only ones to discount the idea. Perhaps we discounted it too quickly.”

Tom frowned. “Are you suggesting that if she is free, then perhaps he is too? And merely in hiding?”

Trevor was already shaking his head. “Rayley wouldn’t hide. I know the man. No matter how acute the danger, he’d find some way to get a message to us, or at least to Rubois.”

“I agree,” said Tom. “In fact, that’s how I think of him, as the sender of messages. But if Isabel is indeed still in Paris, that gives us another person we must find as soon as possible. For it strikes me that she is in as much peril as Rayley.”

“May I speak?” Geraldine suddenly said.

Trevor was surprised by the meek request. “Of course.”

“Do you remember our conversation on the crossing? We were discussing Shakespeare, and Tom said that since the female parts were played by men and that since the plays often had a woman pretending to be her brother, that what you had in the end was a man playing a woman playing a man.” Geraldine looked around the group. “I believe that is precisely what we are dealing with here.”

Tom grimaced. “I’m afraid you lost me on one of those turns.”

“I’m still with you,” said Trevor. “In fact, I’ve been thinking along the precisely same lines ever since we got the telegram. Davy’s message had two parts, did it not? And the second may be just as pertinent as the first. Let’s consider this new and surprising fact that Henry had an older brother, apparently the most persuasive of all the boy-girls. A paragon in fact, for Ian Newlove somehow managed to avoid growing more masculine with the passage of time and even ultimately married, or at least pretended to marry, a man. So, we must ask ourselves, where is Ian now?”

“It’s hard to fathom but you must be right,” said Emma. “Ian is Isabel.”

“But that’s impossible,” Tom said, looking from one to the other. “Well, isn’t it? Isabel Blout has been accepted into the best homes in London for more than a decade and is known far and wide as a seducer of men. For God’s sake, she was even painted by Whistler…” He trailed off thoughtfully, then looked at Trevor. “You saw that something was off the morning we viewed the portrait, didn’t you? You called her out even then.”

“I assure you that I didn’t foresee all this,” Trevor said.

“But you said she wasn’t beautiful,” Tom said. “You kept looking at her foot.”

“Poor Rayley,” Emma murmured. “I don’t suppose he knows.”

“I think it’s rather safe to say he doesn’t,” said Trevor.

“But of course her husband must have,” Tom said questioningly, looking directly at Geraldine. “What was George Blout’s part in all this? Or was he merely history’s biggest fool?”

Geraldine shook her head. “From the very beginning, I’ve told you he was a confirmed bachelor.”

“Yes, you certainly did,” said Trevor, slumping back against the bench with a sigh. “But I’m afraid none of us really understood what you meant by the phrase. I was picturing a retired military man who liked to sit in stuffed armchairs and sputter on that women will never get the vote. I didn’t grasp that you were really saying George Blout was homosexual. Frankly, Gerry, that would have been a helpful thing to know.”

“Oh dear,” Geraldine said. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. It was just a rumor, you know, and then he married a beautiful young girl and the rumor stopped. I always suspected that he was using the marriage to hide behind, as untold numbers of homosexuals have undoubtedly done for centuries. Until just a few minutes ago it had never occurred to me that George had found a way to actually marry a boy. It was something you said, Emma dear, about wondering if Isabel would be able to wear men’s clothing more effectively than you had. And the thought just leapt there, fully formed in my head, that of course she would be able to pass as a man, because she was one.”

“She not only is one, but she is most likely Ian Newlove, Henry’s missing older brother,” Trevor said. He shook his head. “God, but the bloody pronouns are a muddle. Calling her Isabel, seeing her as the woman she has played for so many years, will probably take us closer to the truth. The question now becomes, does Isabel know that her brother is dead? He was never displayed at the morgue and the French police did not release the fascinating fact that the body pulled from the Seine was actually a male dressed as a female, so the newspapers made very little of the incident. Just another suicide in the Seine. Small print on a back page.”

They all sat for a moment in silence.

“She must have learned something,” Emma finally said, “for literally overnight she went from a carefree woman who was flirting with Rayley to one who was begging for help. Something scared her.”

“Remember the timeline,” Trevor said. “The thing that scared her was almost certainly the discovery of Patrick Graham’s body.” He abruptly stood, startling the others. “I think the chances are good that Isabel suspects Henry is also dead but has no confirmation of her fears. And I think we can use this information to flush her from her hiding place.”

“You must have a plan,” Tom said drily. “You always stand up when you have a plan.”

“Our first task is to return to the police station,” Trevor said, “and tell Rubois that we believe we may have indentified his unidentified body. With any luck, he will grant us permission to photograph Henry’s face. And then we shall pay a call on Marjorie Mallory.”

“You’re hoping that she’ll write about The Lady of the River for the evening edition?” said Tom. “I agree the idea has possibilities – if Marjorie writes, for example, that the body of a boy dressed as a girl is going on display at the morgue, we may well lure Isabel there and thus into our trap. But how can be sure that in her present straits, Isabel is even reading newspapers? And even if she does see the evening edition and react, that wouldn’t happen until tonight or tomorrow morning and it may be too late for Rayley.”

“I’ve thought of all that,” Trevor said. He turned to look out over the stunted rooflines of the tenements behind him. “Rayley is near, I’m sure of it,” he said. “When I go to the police station I’m going to ask Rubois for help, even if the help is merely Carle and himself. We shall go door to door over this entire area until we find him. But in the meantime, we must photograph Henry and run copies of that photograph. I wasn’t thinking of a newspaper article, although Tom’s right, if my first plan doesn’t work, it isn’t a bad fallback idea. I was thinking of making posters with Henry’s face. You know the kind, the ones that say Does Anyone Know This Girl? Newspaper offices have presses for such things, do they not, and I suspect Marjorie will help us in exchange for the exclusive rights to our story.”

“Posters,” Emma said. “That’s perfect. We can hang them all over the city. Everyone in Paris looks at the kiosks as they pass, you almost can’t help yourself, so Isabel is much more apt to see a poster than read a newspaper.”

“Put an extra portion of them near the tower,” Gerry said.

Emma frowned. “You wanted to go to the tower, did you not?”

“Because I believe Isabel is there,” Gerry said. “Wearing her new workman’s clothes and back in the role of Ian. She evidently moves between the two identities as it suits her plan.” Gerry nodded toward Emma. “The prostitute we interviewed mentioned that the night Isabel traded her clothes to the workman everyone in the bar was celebrating. They’d just gotten the news that Eiffel had offered jobs to the street people – she said they call themselves the sewer rats – inviting them to work on the tower. My guess would be Isabel took one of those jobs.”

“The elegant Isabel Blout performing day labor on the Eiffel tower?” Tom said skeptically. “Why would she do that?”

“For money, I’m imagine,” Geraldine said archly. “That’s why people most often work, is it not? Consider this. Isabel swapped her fine purple dress for a street person’s clothes, something she was unlikely to do if she had funds to simply buy a man’s shirt and pants. We must assume that she escaped Delacroix with little more than the clothes on her back. Well, that and her valise with more clothes and perhaps jewelry or a silver frame or porcelain figurine, something she could easily grab. Women tend to have access to things more readily than they have access to actual money, so it’s safe to say she found herself immediately short of funds. And where would an impoverished sewer rat go but to the tower?”

“They would never hire a woman to work on the tower,” Tom said.

“She is a man now, remember?” Emma said.

“Ah, yes,” Tom said. “I must purchase one of those little notebooks everyone else carries just to keep this all straight.”

“Back to the plan,” Trevor said. “Geraldine makes a good point, so we shall blanket the area around the tower with the posters.” He was pacing back and forth in front of the others. “You all know I’m never comfortable with the thought of splitting the group…” He scarcely needed to say why, for they all remembered the night that they thought they had caught the Ripper. The fact they had managed to get separated from each other on that dreadful, fog-filled evening had nearly meant the end of Emma and Tom’s sister Leanna.

“It’s sunny and bright here, lots of people about,” Emma said quickly. “We’ll get so much more done if we each take a different task.”

“Let me help,” said Geraldine. “I know I’m slow…”

“You generally manage to stay a step ahead of us all,” Tom said, patting her shoulder.

“All right,” Trevor said decisively, turning to face them. “Emma and I shall go to Rubois and take care of the photography and the posters. Tom, finish following that list of addresses, focusing on the ones that the flic said were in the river ghettos. Geraldine, you shall take up a post on the riverbank and observe.” He raised a palm to silence her before she could protest. “This is not a sop, I promise you. If Rayley is being held in this area, someone is going back and forth to feed him, make sure he hasn’t escaped, that sort of thing. I want you to monitor who is coming and going from these buildings.”

“And what am I to do if I see someone suspicious?”

“You do nothing,” Trevor said sharply. “You take note of which door it was the person entered, which is tricky in itself, for as Tom and I have learned to our frustration, many of the dwellings on the river do not bear a marked address. When Emma and I get back with the police you can point them in the right direction.” Trevor looked around the group. “For none of us, and I include myself in this statement, should approach Armand Delacroix on our own. He’s a very dangerous man. And when these posters begin showing up all over Paris I fear he will become a very desperate one.”

12:32 PM

“We shall probably need to go to one of the avenues if we hope to hail a carriage,” said Emma.

“Is that what you and Tom did this morning after your little swim?” Trevor asked. “It’s all right,” he added, when Emma shot him a look that was half defiant and half guilty. “Tom told me of your theory. It’s not a bad one, you know, and I’m only sorry you felt the need to dissemble.”

They strode up the small street leading to the avenue for a few minutes in silence.

“You honestly don’t understand why I was evasive?” Emma eventually asked, when it became clear Trevor was waiting for some sort of response. “If I had come to you with the suggestion, things would have unfolded precisely as they did on that afternoon in Manchester. You would have pretended to consider my idea and then put me off until you could test the notion before the boys.” Emma sighed. “But perhaps we shouldn’t speak of this now.”

“Oh, but I think we should,” said Trevor. “It is always tempting to put off an unpleasant conversation until a time when circumstances have calmed. We tell ourselves we will raise the thorny issue later, when the crisis is past us and everyone is in a proper frame of mind. But then we are reluctant to shatter that fragile moment of peace, so the trouble remains buried until the next time of crisis. Everyone likes the idea of discussions before a roaring fire, with a glass of wine in the hand and sleeping dogs at the feet, but it occurs to me that I have had the most significant conversations of my life in the middle of whirlwinds. So if you have something to tell me, you may as well say it now, while we’re both exhausted, and worried, and trying to hurry. It’s as good a time as any.”

“I want respect.”

“So you have said. And so I have tried to give you.” They had reached the mouth of the street and Trevor surveyed the crossroads to ascertain the most likely point for hailing a driver. “But it seems that the word ‘respect’ is a vague one, especially when it comes to the relations between men and women. What one woman deems respect, another might find insulting.”

“So if there’s a misunderstanding, it’s automatically the woman’s fault.”

Trevor turned to her, his narrow eyes weary and his shoulders slumped. “Dear God, Emma,” he quietly said. “I’m trying, am I not? If I’m traveling such a distance to meet you, it seems you could at least walk a few steps in my direction.”

She knew he was right. The definition of “respect” was nebulous, as confounding as the gender pronouns in this confounding case. Rayley had worshipped Isabel Blout, but had he respected her? Hardly, at least not by Emma’s standards. Caught up in his romantic fantasies, Rayley had failed to see the most pertinent point about the woman he claimed to desire – that she wasn’t a woman at all. It seemed that sexual attraction always had this effect of blunting our powers of perception. Emma knew that Trevor cared for her and that he was struggling mightily to not let this affection blind him to her abilities.

“I suppose,” she said, “that we must first define what respect looks like for Emma and Trevor.”

“Quite right,” said Trevor, his confidence restored by her reasonable tone of voice. “Let us consider the evidence before us. We are trying to hail a cab on a busy street corner in Paris and my arm is in the air but yours is not. What can we conclude from this?”

Emma chuckled, genuinely amused.

“We might conclude,” she said, “that instinctively we both observe certain social constructs which are built around the notion of gender. Men automatically step forward to hail cabs while women wait on the curb.”

“And if I ever manage to flag one down, shall I extend a hand to steady you as you step up?”

“I suppose that would be nice. To be honest, I suppose I would expect it.”

“Even though I would not extend that same hand to help Davy or Tom.”

“All right, you’ve caught me. I don’t want you to drop all the rituals that exist between men and women and I suspect we would both be quite lost if we tried to do so. But here is the true question. Will you entertain my ideas on an equal par of those of the men? Will you allow me to fully join into the activities of an investigation? Or will your first thought be that I might get hurt, that I should be protected from the dangers which are inherent in all police cases?”

“The truth? Protecting you will always be my first thought,” Trevor said, as at last a carriage began to slow in front of them, the driver firmly pulling the horse to a stop. “But I shall endeavor not to let it be my only thought. I already take your ideas seriously, whether you believe it or not, and in the future I promise I will assign you more field work, even though the idea of you in danger very nearly makes my heart stop.”

“The police station,” Emma called up to the driver in French. Trevor made an elaborate bow, doffing his hat with great ceremony and extending his palm to steady her. She grinned and climbed into the carriage, with him stepping up behind her. When they were seated, Trevor rapped the wall and the carriage rumbled into movement.

“And let me ask you this,” he said. “If you ever find yourself in grave physical danger, would it be permissible for me to come to your aid? After all, I have proven I will do as much for Rayley.”

“Of course. If you like, you might even come on a horse with a sword.”

“And if I’m in danger, how shall you come?”

She was looking out the window. “The truth? I shall probably send one of the men.”

He laughed out loud then, and she began to giggle too. He was right, she thought. The best conversations are those that happen in a whirlwind.

“So this is the modern woman,” Trevor said, sitting back in relief, for the awkwardness that had existed between them ever since that afternoon in Manchester had dissipated at last. “She demands complete equality until trouble rears its head and then she retreats behind the ramparts and dispatches the men into battle. If you don’t mind me saying so, my dear, it isn’t completely logical.”

“I know,” said Emma. “But it is the price of admission, nonetheless.”

12:32 AM



Tom had picked up where the women had left off and had walked the final 400 steps of the riverbank. It had taken them over seven hours to complete Emma’s experiment, he thought sadly, and she wasn’t even there for the culmination of the task. Which is probably just as well, since walking 400 steps had brought him to a patch of a riverbank which looked like any other. No sewer entrance, no clump of lodgings.

Just a bar. He stood for a moment gazing at the doorless doorway and the darkness beyond. How many afternoons had he spent in places such as this? It would be easy to enter now – no one was with him, no one watching. He was in a city that was not even his own. And perhaps, who knows, the elusive Isabel Blout might happen to be sitting in this very –

But no. He stopped himself and turned his body away from the door in the mute hope his mind would follow. It was too easy to justify why one might enter a bar and he knew bloody well there would be no Isabel inside. This sad little hovel, which he supposed was literally open all the time, held nothing but the exact same things he had found in dozens like it over the last three years. Alcohol, lost hours, nameless women, and regret.

He had told Emma there were a dozen variables beyond their control in her experiment. Very well then, perhaps he should consider the possibility they had miscounted the number of necessary steps and walk a little further.

Within five minutes he had come to another sewer opening. Plenty of dwellings were slammed right up against the concrete walls, but no people seemed to be about. He didn’t see any shops or bars, but merely what looked like a line of uninhabited rooms sharing a single roof, hobbled together with mossy stones and mud. The whole thing was a bit medieval in appearance and certainly off-putting. He ventured closer and yelled “Rayley?” as loudly as he could.

No answer, except the sound of his own cry bouncing back to him. The same concrete and stone which caused his voice to echo would doubtlessly prevent any sound from penetrating the walls. Tom scanned the building. He could find no visible address, so trying to match this gloomy place to the locations on Rayley’s list was pointless.

There were perhaps twenty rooms in all. In lieu of doorknobs they had rather odd looking levers and Tom chose the first one in the row and pulled it. There was a bit of a rattle but very little movement. The doorless bar had given him hope that few people attempted either privacy or security in these humble river dwellings, but these rooms seemed a different sort of structure and were likely meant for a different sort of purpose. Perfect for hiding someone and admittedly not far from what Emma had imagined as a “base of operations” for Delacroix.

Tom went from one door to the next, systematically pulling each level and screaming “Rayley.” It was unlikely he would be heard by anyone within this fortress, but it still seemed a chance worth taking. None of the levers gave way and Tom could only hope that Trevor was successful in persuading Rubois to return to the river with him, ideally with a cadre of officers. If there was no lock, and thus no key, he couldn’t imagine how one would gain entry to this strange building. But perhaps there was an extraordinarily clever locksmith somewhere on the force – it certainly seemed the French had everything else – who could manage to solve the puzzle. Short of that, they would have to use a battering ram.

Having tried the final door without success, Tom slowly backed away from the line of rooms, his boots sticking in the muck so badly that they were nearly pulled from his feet. He should go back to where Geraldine waited, he thought. Insist that she stay in that relatively safe place downriver and then proceed on his own to the police station for help. Finding this fortress location was a promising lead, but a medical student going about screaming and rattling doors was not enough. The task required proper officers, with proper tools.

As Tom turned to walk back down the river bank his eye caught on something lying in an open expanse of lawn. The vegetation around the sewer was almost ridiculously verdant, and the grass was high, but perched on top was a small gray bundle. Just when he stooped to pick it up, a nearby church bell struck one.

1:00 PM



The ringing of a single bell had always seemed to Rayley an ominous sound. His burst of activity from the morning had faded and as he lay on his cot staring up at his single rectangle of light, he felt his first taste of pure, unadulterated fear. That one gong, so ponderous and deep. As his teacher back in public school would have said, perhaps the bell tolled for him.

He feared that a combination of drugs, hunger, and incessant darkness was causing him to hallucinate. For just a minute earlier he had been jerked from a shallow nap – it seemed that Rayley never fully slept or wakened anymore, but rather existed in some sort of nether world between the two – by the impression that someone was approaching his cell. But the door had not opened, no matter how hard he stared. And then he had been further convinced he heard the sound of his own name, very dim and far away, and he had shouted back over and over that he was here, here, here, until his voice had utterly failed him.

Such was his state. He had bundled together everything he possessed in the world and thrown it out a window. He had even opted to half-blind himself in the process, and now he had likewise rendered himself mute. All he had left was his mind. What would become of him if he managed to lose that as well?

He sat back on his cot, heart pounding. For the first time since he had been captured, Rayley let himself wonder what it would feel like to drown.

London



1:20 PM



Davy had finished writing up his report for Eatwell on his visit to 229 Cleveland Street. The report was not dishonest, he told himself. Merely incomplete.

Davy knew that his words were nothing like those of Trevor. Trevor wrote forcefully, persuasively, each missive to his superiors not merely a summation of the facts, but a thinly veined appeal for greater funding for forensics. In contrast, Davy’s lines were brief and toneless. A story without a hero.

It would have mattered more if anyone ever read the reports. Really read them, that is, with the sort of concentration that would have allowed a man to quickly distinguish Davy’s timid prose from Trevor’s bombast. But Davy suspected Eatwell would do no more than skim the paper and toss it aside. The two pornographic books, included along with the liquor case and the second copy of Hammond’s thumbprint, might evoke slightly more interest.

Davy pulled on his jacket, and headed up the stairs. He may as well eat his midday meal in a pub, he thought. It wasn’t as if there was a kidney pie waiting for him at home.

He had done his job and done it well, so he could not have said why he was so dispirited as he walked through the gates of Scotland Yard and down the crowded street. The day held a promise of spring, a promise that was not likely to be kept, since cold rain would most certainly return to London by the end of this endless April. Davy knew he should enjoy the clear sky while he could, so he found himself walking, simply walking, even though he passed several reasonably-priced pubs where coppers often ate.

He had no idea what was happening in Paris and perhaps that was the source of his mood. It was hard to live on twenty-word telegrams without truly knowing if Trevor was any closer to finding Rayley. It appeared that events were moving quickly, but perhaps not quickly enough. Trevor told him that most kidnapping victims were dead within two hours of being taken and the detective had now been missing…Davy shook his head. Too many hours to count.

Charles Hammond would surely fall. He would be arrested at least on a morals charge and most possibly for homicide as well, and with any luck the fingerprint would be a large part of the evidence used to convict him. But even the knowledge that Scotland Yard would get their man did not bring Davy peace. He knew that when Hammond fell he would take many others with him, including the boys on Cleveland Street. Right now they lived in limbo, but if Hammond was convicted and jailed, there was no telling what would become of the house. Where do boys go, Davy wondered, when they have seen and done so much by the age of fifteen? The sea, he supposed, or the army. Heaven help them there.

A carriage rolled by, larger and grander than the others in the street. The royal insignia was on the side - the arms of the Prince of Wales - and behind the glass Davy caught a brief glimpse of its lone occupant. The noble Duke of Clarence, staring straight ahead with his large impassive eyes. He looks like the Queen, Davy thought with surprise, fully realizing the resemblance for the first time, and he wondered if the man would ever take the throne. Everyone knew that Victoria intended to live forever and the Duke’s father was better than fifty, a ridiculous age for a Prince, with the beginning of his own reign nowhere in sight. With any luck the Duke of Clarence would drink himself to death while the Queen and the Prince still lived and England would be spared a King Bertie.

The Duke had not looked happy as he passed. None of the royal family could be accused of openly enjoying their life of luxury. The Hanovers were, in fact, a gloomy and stolid tribe and Davy found that he wasn’t standing at attention, as he normally did whenever he saw a carriage with the royal insignia, but that he had instead continued to walk, his hands crammed in his pockets, his hat pulled low across his bow. It felt odd to be still moving among all those people who stood respectfully still, all those who had halted in their progress and were craning their necks toward the carriage, straining for a look inside.

They don’t deserve it, he thought. So many unknown souls suffer and die in their name, every day, and they can’t be bothered to look out the bloody window. He thought of Detective Abrams, alone and enduring God knows what, and the boys back in Cleveland Street, pushing and shoving for each bite of kidney pie.

If his mother had known he had those thoughts, that he had continued to walk while a royal carriage passed… For that matter, even if Trevor had known…

Better the Queen than what’s to follow, Davy conceded. At least Victoria had a sense of duty. But she seemed to know so little of the world beyond the gates of Buckingham Palace. Even her excessive mourning of Albert, which was now entering its third decade - with, like her reign, no end in sight - was a privilege few women were granted. Davy’s mother had surely loved his father just as much but, with a houseful of boys to feed, she had been back at her position as a seamstress the day after her husband was buried.

They don’t deserve it, Davy thought again, this time with more conviction. They don’t understand the depth of sacrifice that is required to keep them on their high perch and, perhaps most galling of all, now that they’ve been set above us, they don’t even seem to enjoy it.

Davy wondered if he was becoming a radical.

Dear God, he certainly hoped not.