London - Edward Rutherfurd [552]
“Yes?”
“Would you be the daughter of the late Mr Silas Dogget, of Blackheath?”
As soon as Esther answered yes, the caller had hung up. She was just wondering about it for the hundredth time when the doorbell rang, and a moment later, the maid announced: “There’s a Miss Lucy Dogget to see you, ma’am.”
Lucy had insisted that she could not state her business until they were alone. Esther had wondered if she should refuse to see her, but her curiosity got the better of her, and the quietly dressed old woman seemed harmless enough. Lucy had spent two days searching and borrowing enough clothes from the families she knew to make a respectable appearance. She had even borrowed a pair of boots from the vicar’s housekeeper – a size too small, so that she could almost weep with the pinching pain after walking a mile from the bus. But in her grey coat, black hat, simple black dress and clean brown stockings, she could have passed for a respectable housekeeper or lady’s maid in quiet retirement.
“I wanted to see you alone,” she explained, “because I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
She told her story simply and when she had finished Esther Silversleeves gazed at her in horrified silence. She did not doubt Lucy’s tale, but it opened up before her such a terrible abyss that she had to grip the arms of the chair.
“The rich relation, you mean, was. . . .”
“Up at Blackheath. Very fine gentleman he was, I must say. You must have been very proud of him.”
“Yes. But. . . .” Esther gazed at her with dread. “You said your little brother died on the river. . . .”
Just for a second Lucy looked into her eyes with perfect understanding before dropping her gaze to the floor. “That was ever such a long time ago,” she said softly. “Not sure I even remember it.”
The dark chasm was there: the faint splash of an oar in the fog, the dull thump of a body, things Esther had scarcely known, but always dreaded. A cold, damp nightmare, invading the respectable house by Hampstead Heath. Esther thought of Arnold, of her sons, of young Penny cruising the Nile, of the Bulls, of Lord St James. And of Silas the dredger. For a moment she lost her voice. At last, hoarsely, she asked: “Do you need money?”
Lucy shook her head. “No. I didn’t come to ask for money. I wouldn’t do that. No, it’s a decent place the girl needs. In service, you see. In a decent house, where she’ll be safe and looked after. I hoped perhaps you might know somewhere. That’s all. I didn’t come to ask for anything more than that.”
“How long is it since you came to see my father?” Esther asked at last.
“Thirty-eight years.”
“You must have known great hardship.”
“Yes, truly I have,” said Lucy. And then, taking herself completely by surprise, she suddenly broke down, and for a moment could do nothing except lean forward in her chair, her hands gripping her knees through her old black dress, and her body quietly shaking as she murmured: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“She shall be safe. She shall come here,” said Esther Silversleeves, greatly to her own astonishment.
For a man who always looked immaculate, it had to be said that the Earl of St James did not look quite himself that day. He had pulled on a greatcoat with shoulder capes over his open shirt, crammed a bowler hat on his head and seized a red silk scarf which he absent-mindedly wound round his neck as he ran out of the door and hailed a hansom cab. He was in such a state he even forgot his keys. Barnikel and the Charlotte Rose had just arrived, three weeks late.
The last month had been grim for St James. There had been the embarrassing business of Nancy. A gentleman was not supposed to go back on his word, but the marriage, of course, could not have gone forward. He had written her a letter suggesting that something in his own past made it necessary – indeed, though he did not say what, he implied it was only decent – to withdraw. He could have said he was penniless, too, but he was so furious about the whole thing that he was damned if he would. He comforted himself with the reflection that, having lost his fortune, the Bostonian