Other tragedies free us, as Clarke’s confession freed me.
You cannot know what it means, reader, to have thought yourself despised for your unworthiness for a period of years—to have supposed your very nature poison, and your friend right to have thus abandoned you—and to learn thereafter that you were loved not too little but too well.
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East India House was a fortress; the building loomed over me like a conqueror, the lower two floors absurdly high-ceilinged, and the entrance guarded by six positively enormous Ionic columns. A frail wind whined in my ears, tugging the tailcoats of the men dancing about with their arms full of papers in a chaotically choreographed tribute to wealth. Never had I set eyes on a place which so pungently reeked of power and money, and I hesitated, fearing the consequences should I provoke the lion in its den.
Better you than the residents of Highgate House, I thought. You have been Jane Stone, Jane Smith, and today you will be Jane Steele—the only woman suited to this task.
I adopted an aloof air and entered the front hall.
If the shareholders were already assured of the Company’s ruthless dominance by the exterior of East India House, the interior hammered the point home; everywhere I looked was marble and crystal and carvings and paintings of faraway lands. Finding Augustus P. Sack’s office would have been daunting, but a clerk with waxed grey moustaches escorted me, somehow exuding hauteur and deference simultaneously. A knock produced an instant reply of “Come in!” and the stranger presented me to Sack, making a prompt exit.
“Well, well, Miss Stone,” Augustus Sack purred, quitting his desk to drop a kiss above my outstretched hand. “I was very intrigued indeed by your letter.”
“Yes, I suppose you must have been.”
“Do sit down. Tea or a little wine, perhaps?”
“The latter, if you will join me.”
“Miss Stone, a beautiful woman need hardly ask that question—and may I state in addition that your present costume quite takes my breath away?”
It had not escaped my attention that Mr. Sack’s shrewd eyes had examined my attire, landing with a spark of lust upon the Punjabi diamonds.
“Governesses are expected to be such drab creatures. It is a life of terrible drudgery even when one is not living in fear of one’s employer, Mr. Sack.”
“Frightened you, did they, the scoundrels?” Mr. Sack commiserated. “Happily, you are safely under the care of John Company now, Miss Stone.”
Mr. Sack poured claret from a decanter on a carved mahogany sideboard; he was just as I remembered him, doughy and pink faced, with gleaming cheeks and fat fingers. Now I saw that his rich attire—a maroon coat on this occasion, with a yellow silk necktie—matched his office, for everywhere I looked were signs of needless expense. From ivory cigar box to silver-chased gasogene, Company executives seemed to display wealth like peacocks spreading their plumage.
He ushered me into a chair, equipped us with wine, and perched on the front of his desk. “First, Miss Stone, let me offer my solemn oath that you may tell me anything in complete confidence—I gather that you departed Highgate House in great anxiety, which I confess does not surprise me, considering the dark history of Thornfield and his shadow, Singh. If we are to be friends, we must trust each other.”
So I am already promised immunity for stealing the trunk, I thought, delighted.
“I am yours to command, Mr. Sack, so harrowed was I by my recent experiences.”
The sympathetic frown he manufactured was revolting, so sharply did his eyes cut from my necklace to my face and back again. “We speak of desperate men, Miss Stone. Please—tell me everything.”
I did not tell him everything, and several of the things I told him were bold-faced lies.
Tremulously, I informed Mr. Sack that after the knives had driven him away at breakfast, I had feared for my life. However, I had determined to wait at least until I was given my first quarterly wages, having no other means of returning to London. In the meanwhile, I had launched a secret investigation of the house’s occupants and learnt what Mr. Sack had been doing visiting Highgate House thanks to covert eavesdropping (not untrue); thus had I heard the story of the trunk and its contents.
“The tale sounded to me quite preposterous, but I continued in my quest to discover all I could,” I informed him shyly. “There seemed no other choice if I wished to escape their clutches.”
“None at all, none in the world, Miss Stone—you did quite right,” the Company diplomat soothed. “Please go on.”