“But how can you be sure that your candidates will be suitable?”
Lady Holmes always suspected the servants to be full of sloth and thievery. Livia, as great a pessimist as ever lived, simply assumed that the staff, like the rest of the world, despised her on sight and would inevitably take advantage of her. Charlotte didn’t share their views, but seeking a lady’s companion directly via the back of the newspaper was probably not the best way to find qualified candidates. And if she were a qualified candidate herself, she’d be leery of such an advert, wondering why a potential employer didn’t obtain recommendation from friends or use the service of a registry, wondering whether it wasn’t instead the work of a confidence artist.
“Well, I placed another advert, this one for finding a long-lost daughter, and I made sure the two adverts are set close together—in the same region on the page, but in different columns,” explained Mrs. Jebediah who wasn’t really Mrs. Jebediah. “And of course, the two adverts direct potential applicants to write to two different women at two different post offices.”
Charlotte clapped her hands together. “Aha! At my previous boarding home, one of the women read aloud your lost-daughter advert. I see your ruse: If a candidate answers both adverts, then she is clearly not to be trusted.”
“Precisely.”
“And has this method helped you eliminate some candidates?”
“All of them, except one. That is, one woman who hasn’t written about the lady’s companion position, but seems to be most sincerely seeking her mother, which makes me feel terrible for possibly having given her hope where none existed.” Mrs. Jebediah smiled a little. “You are correct, Miss Holmes. I am running a scheme, only not a successful one. At least not for me.”
A fine carriage drew up before the tea shop. “Oh, that’s mine,” she said, “which reminds me that I have an appointment to keep.”
She rose. A look of alarm must have crossed Charlotte’s face, for she added, “And the bill has already been settled. I would not dream of saddling you with it, my dear.”
Charlotte’s face heated. She didn’t believe Mrs. Jebediah was the sort to indulge in such frauds, but then again she had read the mother-and-daughter beggar team completely wrong, too. “The thought never occurred to me. Thank you most kindly for tea, ma’am.”
“I’m sure we will run into each other again at the post office, Miss Holmes.”
Mrs. Jebediah swept out and entered the carriage, the gaze of everyone in the tea shop and half of the pedestrians on the street affixed to her person. Charlotte was full—what a marvelous feeling—but she remained at the table and, without any hurry, polished off the last small clumps of scrambled eggs, the last crumbs of the ham pie, and the last two divine strawberries. Alas the potted chicken was already all gone, the inside of the ramekin as empty as Charlotte’s appointment book.
Only as she finally rose did she see Mrs. Jebediah’s reticule, left behind on a chair.
Eleven
The woman who wasn’t named Mrs. Jebediah stood before her wedding photograph, gazing at the radiant bridegroom who would remain forever young. Her hand trembled slightly as she lifted a glass of sherry to her lips.
Mears, her faithful butler, walked into the room. “Ma’am, a young lady to see you. She said—”
“You may show her in.”
She could very well regret it before the night was out, but Mrs. Not-Jebediah had come to a decision.
An important decision.
She set aside the sherry glass and took a seat in her favorite chair. Footsteps came up the stairs. The young woman who entered in Mears’s wake, however, was not Miss Holmes, but someone she had never seen before.
“Miss Hartford,” announced Mears—and withdrew.
Miss Hartford was about the same age as Miss Holmes, but the similarity ended there. She was thin, hunched, and remarkably dowdy for one so young: ill-fitting dress, drooping bonnet, and spectacles that insisted on sliding down her nose.
“Mrs. Jebediah?” she asked tentatively.
Mrs. Not-Jebediah blinked. She was only Mrs. Jebediah in the advert for the fictional long-lost daughter and she had never given her private address in that context, not even to the newspaper.
“Mrs. Jebediah, my name is Ellie Hartford. I’m mighty sorry to call so late but I work as a cook’s assistant at the Dog and Duck in Bywater and they didn’t let me out any sooner.”
“Oh.”
“A few days ago, the barmaid at the pub showed me the paper. ‘Ain’t you always said you was dropped on the doorsteps of Westminster Abbey, luv? Well, here be a lady looking for her baby what was—’”
“You may stop right there, Miss Hartford,” came another voice.
Miss Holmes.