Alice could see he was nervous. He was instructed to unloop his suspenders and lift his shirt so Mrs. Harrogate could examine the birthmark, and then she stood and interlocked her fingers over her belly and stared. Alice frowned, uncertain. Her task had been only to locate and escort the child but she found herself uneasy with Mrs. Harrogate’s manner, as if the woman were checking out a horse she wanted to buy.
But then Mrs. Harrogate turned away, as if losing sudden interest, and asked in a cool dispassionate tone if they were hungry or tired, and led Alice across the parlor to a dressed table in front of a window. And her every gesture seemed ordinary, or nearly so, or at least neither sinister nor calculated, and Alice began to relax. She declined the cup of tea. Took off her hat, raked her fingers through her hair, rolled her neck and shoulders for the stiffness. Last of all she began to tell about the attack in the night in New York, and the burning of the circus, and the child’s shining talent, and her own healed knee.
Mrs. Harrogate’s eyelids flickered as she listened. But after that she tracked the boy’s movements with a strange voracity, like a cat to a bird, and Alice felt all her old uneasiness again.
“His name is Jacob,” said Mrs. Harrogate, turning a little spoon in her cup. Her eyes never left the boy. “Jacob Marber. He is not … like us.”
“You don’t say,” Alice said acidly.
“Mr. Coulton and I feared as much, when he did not come after Mr. Ovid.” Mrs. Harrogate breathed in sharply through her little nostrils, as if to contain her anger. “I wish you to know that Mr. Coulton’s purpose is to prevent exactly what just happened. It is for this reason he is kept on retainer. I am most ashamed, Miss Quicke. You should not have had to confront Jacob Marber.”
And Alice, who had been preparing her own outrage at being told so little, stoking it all across the Atlantic and overland to London, felt suddenly confused by the apology, mollified, and reached for a cup of tea she’d already declined.
As always, upon delivery of a child, Alice was paid in cash, twenty crisp paper notes slid into a billfold, left this time on the pier table. Mrs. Harrogate made it clear that her services were still required. As she was putting back on her hat to go, Marlowe pulled her down so he could whisper in her ear.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered. “Please.”
She looked at his little face, his big trusting eyes.
“I’ll be back soon,” she lied.
And she went out into the fog, hating herself and the job and Mrs. Harrogate and Coulton, wherever he was, and she hailed a hansom across to her lodgings in Deptford. There she went through the rooms, looking for signs of entry, but all was as she’d left it, dim and shabby, though covered now in a fine layer of soot from the badly sealed windows. She went downstairs and paid the landlady several more months in advance and then went back up. She opened her wardrobe, changed into one of her two clean shirts, put on a new hat and then took it off and put back on her grimy traveling hat. In the cloudy mirror she studied her oilskin coat with a critical eye, fading and cracking at the seams. She pulled down a box of ammunition for her Colt Peacemaker and filled her pockets. She thought about staying the night, the rooms being so quiet, the bed simple and soft. Then she thought about Marlowe.
“Damn it,” she whispered.
It was evening when she got back to Nickel Street West. All the windows were blazing with light.
“I knew you’d come,” Marlowe said to her, when she walked into the warm parlor. But there was in his eyes something that said he hadn’t known it, hadn’t been sure of it at all. She felt a pang, seeing it. He’d eaten, washed his face, put on a flannel sleeping gown far too long for him. He’d been sitting with Charlie Ovid on the thick Persian carpet under the new window, talking maybe, or maybe just sitting, she couldn’t tell, but whatever it was when she came in Charlie got up and went through into the bright foyer and upstairs without saying a word.
She gave Marlowe a tired smile. “I said I’d be back, didn’t I?” she said. She gestured at where Charlie had disappeared. “Is he all right?”
Marlowe smiled shyly. “I like him. He’s nice.”
Nice. Not her word. She remembered how he’d cut the throat of the guard in Natchez, how he’d dug out of his own flesh the blade to kill him with, and felt something flicker across her face. It was clear something had happened to Charlie, not only because of the marks on his throat, only slowly going away. There was in his face a new sharpness, an unhappiness. She reminded herself to ask him about it directly. Or Coulton, if he ever showed up. Where the hell was Coulton, anyway?
“On an errand” was all Mrs. Harrogate would say.
And that only in passing, as she hurried out of the grand house, adjusting her hat and gloves, or made for the attic where she kept, she said, her pigeons, or else as she was coming back in from the shops, a package under her arm, disappearing into one of the rooms on the third floor. A day passed, then another. It seemed to Alice, in irritation, that the widow was avoiding her, as if she knew Alice had questions, as if she knew Alice would demand answers.
But if Mrs. Harrogate avoided Alice, she did not avoid Marlowe. Alice was with the boy one dark afternoon passing the entrance to the kitchen when the older woman, from within, called them through. A great pot was boiling on an ancient stove. Mrs. Harrogate stood at a long counter, chopping a row of carrots with a very sharp knife, bang bang bang, scraping them into the pot, chopping again.
“What kind of institute can’t afford a cook?” Alice said.
“Can’t and won’t are not the same,” replied Mrs. Harrogate. “Servants talk.”
Alice smiled dryly. “They also cook.”
“And you, Marlowe,” the older woman said, ignoring this, “how are you settling in? I see you and Charles have become friends.”
Marlowe, standing just inside the door, nodded.
She paused at her chopping. “Stand straight. That’s better. We mustn’t slouch like a layabout. Now, what did they teach you, child, at your circus? Did you learn your letters?”
Marlowe nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Harrogate.”
“Your maths?”
“Yes.”
“And your Bible? Were you raised a Christian?”
Marlowe bit at his lip, his face reddening.
“I see.” She returned to her chopping but kept her eyes on Marlowe. “Show me your hands. They’re filthy. Cleanliness is next to godliness, child. Did Miss Quicke not instruct you on how to wash, on the journey?”
“She took good care of me, Mrs. Harrogate.”
“And yet you have been here several days in her charge and your hands still look like this. He is in England now, Miss Quicke. You must do a better job of helping him to blend in.” She turned back to the child. “You will have questions about why you are here. You are a very special boy, Marlowe.”
Alice watched as he met the older woman’s eye boldly. She glimpsed in his expression something hard, stubborn, older than his years. “Because of what I can do,” he told her. “Because there’s other kids like me. I’m to go to meet them.”
“Well, the other children are not like you exactly,” said Mrs. Harrogate, selecting her words with care. She crossed the kitchen to a small pantry and came back with an armful of potatoes. “But they are talents, yes. That is what we call it, your ability, yours and the other children’s.”
“Talents,” Marlowe murmured, turning the word on his tongue.
“We will be leaving for the north, soon. At the institute, you will meet Dr. Berghast. Do you know who that is?”
“No, Mrs. Harrogate.”
“You were his ward. He is your guardian. Your family.”
Alice looked up sharply. This was something new. Marlowe was regarding the older woman without fear. “You don’t have to lie,” he said. “I know there isn’t any family looking for me.”
“Who told you that, child?”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Harrogate. Sometimes family is what you choose.”
“Who told you that you had no family?”
Alice felt Marlowe’s hand reach for hers. It was clear he didn’t want to give her away, but he didn’t know how else to answer.