The previous August, I read with passionate interest the obituary of Mrs. Patience Barbary, who died abroad; Highgate House had passed into the care of that most universally respected profession, the law. My aunt’s death hurt shallowly, like a mishap made peeling potatoes—she had never searched for me, never even advertised, an omission which made me equal parts grateful and furious.
Meanwhile, the thought of Highgate House provoked a queer unease. My mother insisted that it was mine, but died before explaining how or why. I was not unhappy in London; I adored the metropolis, the way I could disappear in it, but approaching a group of gouty men wearing pince-nez had not seemed wise. I was not destitute, but neither was I remotely respectable any longer; I wore jolly frocks with the fronts cut low and slung brightly coloured shawls about my elbows, teased my favourite costermongers with vocabulary that would have quite soured my aunt’s digestion. Neither did I have paperwork, nor any means whatsoever of proving I was the Jane Steele who had disappeared so long ago, and thus the idea of knocking up a powder-wigged gentleman to say How de do, may I have this estate, please? frankly frightened me. In any case, ought I claim to be Jane Steele when Inspector Sam Quillfeather could be waiting with his ear to the ground, a hunter wise enough to allow his prey to trap herself and save him the bother?
Now, however—the thought of a stranger inhabiting the place smouldered in my stomach. Was the cottage occupied? Was my bedroom? Was Agatha yet living, and would she even know me if she was?
“Lived at a place named Highgate House!” Tilly teased. “Well, I never. Ye was a genuine lady, like, with silks and velvets and a stick up yer arse.”
“No velvets. No silks.” I folded the paper.
“But the stick?”
“Of course, they equip us with bum sticks from the cradle.”
“I’ll bet ye had a great bed wi’ acres and acres o’ white sheets,” she surmised dreamily.
“All you ever think about is linens. It’s actually impressive.”
She shrugged. “Never ’ad naught but a straw tick, so, aye, it occupies me mind.”
“Admittedly if I spent as much time in bed as you do . . .” Her face clouded. “Tilly, I’m only joking—you know I’m no better than I should be.”
“How is Jeremiah, come to that?”
She passed the pipe and I took another slow puff. “I’ve thrown him over. He snores, and he wasn’t much cop at . . . well, anything. He may as well have been winding up his watch.”
“Bloody hell, if ye net a guppy, toss ’im back in the river.” Tilly giggled.
At my lowest tide of spirits and highest of gin swilling, I had discovered that I enjoyed the practice of lovemaking as much as the theory. My swells were acquaintances from Rotherhithe, mainly—the curly-haired boy from the saltpetre works, the tap man at the Mayflower Pub. By giving the lads some fun, I could at least make a human being happy for a quicksilver moment; and once I had got the knack of pessaries and slow touches and the faint scrape of teeth over hipbones, I enormously enjoyed myself, just as I had imagined I would when gasping alone in my bed with The Garden of Forbidden Delights.
“I’ll find someone else soon enough,” said I.
“Yer doin’ it wrong, ye realise,” Tilly repeated, shaking her head. “They’re meant to pay for the privilege.”
Clattering on the stairs interrupted us, and in tumbled Kitty Cate. She had turned twelve in June and moved with that coltish energy of girls who are about to shoot up like fireworks; her great wiry corkscrews of hair were flecked with snow, and she held a golden ribbon.
“Look at what Mr. Frost done give me, mum,” she exclaimed, waving it. “’E said as it would bring out me eyes.”
Tilly’s mouth wrenched to one side. “Judge Frost done give that to you? In the street, like?”
“Aye.” Kitty stroked it, studying the colour. “Won’t it look smart, though? I’ve that green frock, when the weather turns, and—”
“Good afternoon, all,” a nasal voice sounded.
Judge Frost stood in the open doorway, belatedly rapping at the wood. Tilly often visited me, “taking the air,” and thus I was familiar with her regular customers; I liked Judge Frost so much less than the others that the figure landed in the negative. He was thin and wispy, with dandelion fluff sprouting from his cheeks and neck and ears. Indirectly, he was useful, as he had caused scores of people to be hanged at Newgate and Tyburn; directly, he was petulant and insinuating.
“Well, and do you like your Christmas gift?” He chuckled, rubbing his hands. “Frills and baubles, purses and petticoats, I’ve a niece myself and she thinks of nothing else. I’ve chosen well, my pet?”
“’Tis lovely,” Kitty said, beaming, and then I noted that Tilly had gone pale.
“That’s to the good, then! Now, you’ll excuse your mother and me whilst we have a little chat?”
Judge Frost had a voice like chalk squealing, and he was directing all his quivery attention at Kitty, who twisted the ribbon in her fingers as she pelted off downstairs again.