“Which old woman?” asked Charlotte.
The brunette turned toward her. “You must be the new girl. Miss Holmes, is it?” she asked, her demeanor friendly.
“Yes. Nice to meet you, Miss . . .”
“Whitbread. Nan Whitbread, and this is Miss Spooner.”
They all shook hands.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt, but what you were talking about sounded fascinating.”
“Oh, it is. My cousin works at one of the fancy dressmakers on Regent Street,” said Miss Whitbread. “And she kept hearing about it all day from the clients. They weren’t talking to her, of course, but among themselves, about the lady what caught her married son having a go at this young lady, hung the young lady out to dry, and then woke up dead the next morning.”
Lady Shrewsbury was dead? Dead?
“Oh, my,” Charlotte mumbled. “Just like that?”
“That’s what they say. Can’t remember the name for it, the condition what makes you bleed in the head.”
“An aneurysm of the brain?” Charlotte supplied.
“Sounds about right. First-rate story, ain’t it? Oh, I mean, isn’t it?” Miss Whitbread lowered her voice. “Mrs. Wallace don’t like us using ‘ain’t’ around here. Says it isn’t ladylike.”
“And if you got a young man who’s sweet on you, don’t ever mention it to her—or Miss Turner,” added Miss Spooner. “We aren’t supposed to have any gentlemen friends at all.”
“’Specially not a young man like Miss Spooner’s. He takes her out to tea shops and feeds her suppers,” said Miss Whitbread with a wink.
“Shh,” warned Miss Spooner, laughter and alarm alike dancing in her eyes. “Speak of the devil.”
Mrs. Wallace came into the common room. She was in her mid-thirties, a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a clear look of authority. Behind her followed a thin, short woman who must be at least five years older but was obviously a lieutenant, rather than the captain. Miss Turner then.
Mrs. Wallace greeted her boarders and introduced Charlotte. The company duly proceeded to the dining room, where Miss Turner said grace, and the women helped themselves to a supper of boiled bacon cheek and vegetable marrow.
Charlotte’s meals were very important to her. But this evening she noticed nothing of the food she put in her mouth. With half an ear she listened to Miss Whitbread tell her about the rules and customs of the house. The only question she asked was, “Do you think I’d be allowed to go out and buy a newspaper?”
“Oh, you don’t need to. Mrs. Wallace don’t like any of us going out after supper so she has the evening paper delivered.”
When Charlotte reached the common room after supper, Miss Turner already had the evening paper in hand. She read aloud from its pages as the other women knitted, mended hose, wrote letters, or played games of draughts.
“Now listen to this advert, ladies. Seeking, sincerely and urgently, girl infant left behind on the doorsteps of Westminster Cathedral, on the night of the twenty-third of November, 1861.” Miss Turner peered over the top of the paper at the other occupants of the room. “This is why you must always be careful and not be led astray, or the same could happen to you—become a sorry woman looking for her child twenty-five years too late.”
The date sounded familiar. Charlotte searched her memory and recalled that there had been an awful pea-souper on that day in 1861. She sincerely doubted anyone would choose to venture out in such weather to abandon a baby, of all things, but she didn’t say anything.
At precisely nine o’clock Miss Turner laid aside the paper. All the other women rose and prepared to vacate the room.
Charlotte took the paper.
“Miss Holmes, lights-out is at half nine,” said Miss Turner officiously. “You should not read past that.”
“I won’t,” Charlotte promised.
In her room, a small but faultlessly clean space, she quickly found the death notice for Lady Shrewsbury. So Lady Shrewsbury truly was dead. When she’d been energetic and vigorous only the day before.
Lady Shrewsbury had seemed a great deal more upset at Charlotte than at her own son. But could she have been furious about him, rather than merely peeved? Could that fury have led to her perishing in her slumber?
Charlotte rubbed her temples, wishing she’d bought a cache of foodstuff. The portions at supper might have been enough for a woman of smaller appetites, but Charlotte had never been one of those women.
What was really going on? And would people think Charlotte might have had something to do with it?
Charlotte,
You liar!
You swore up and down that all would be well, that you would have no trouble landing a post in short order. How inebriated I must have been, to have taken you at your word.