The Sleeping Partner Page 28

  In the kitchen of Mrs. Brereton’s house all was in what appeared to be chaos. Miss Tolerance, who had spent a good number of hours observing Cook’s management, knew the pandemonium was more seeming than actual; that dishes for the lavish buffet Mrs. Brereton made available to her customers would be finished and brought up to the saloon; that pots and pans would be scrubbed and put away; and that the dire threats Cook made upon the life and limbs of her kitchen staff would never be acted upon.

  “I’ll have your liver for sausage if you let that sauce burn,” Cook was advising Jess, the scullery girl newly promoted to cook’s assistant. Cook turned—it was astonishing that so vast a woman could move so quickly—and greeted Miss Tolerance, chiding that she looked half-fed and pale. “A cup of soup is what you need, Miss Sarah. And maybe a roll or two?”

  “I was hoping to speak with Marianne for a moment,” Miss Tolerance said mildly.

  “Well, do you sit then. I’ll send this’n off to find her.” Cook elbowed the new scullery boy, who had just brought in a scuttle of coal for the oven fire. The boy did not quite drop the coal, though it was a near thing. “You, Jeddy, run tell Cole Miss Sarah wants a word with Mrs. Touchwell.”

  Jeddy gestured at Miss Tolerance with his chin. “This’n Miss Sarah?” He was a chubby boy, highly freckled, with a droopy eye; his left hand was pebbled with warts. Miss Tolerance nodded in acknowledgment. “Well eno’. Back in a tick.”

  Cook shook her head. “That’n’ll take a lick of training up just to understand who’s to be respecked, Miss Sarah. Don’t you mind Jeddy’s way.” She pressed a cup of broth into Miss Tolerance’s hands as Miss Tolerance was assuring her she did not mind the boy in the least.

  Jed returned and went out for more wood; shortly Marianne appeared, dressed for the evening and draping an ivory-colored Norwich shawl about her shoulders.

  “I was hoping you would have a few moments to dress my arm,” Miss Tolerance said. “If it is inconvenient—”

  “As it happens, it is entirely convenient. I’ve an engagement later; the gentleman has the whole evening and means to use it. Let me see.” She asked Cook for some hot water, and took her friend into Cook’s room for a little privacy.

  The wound was still angry looking, the flesh above the dressing swollen and red. Miss Tolerance looked away as her friend worked, dabbing carefully at the wound, dusting it with calomel powder and, at last, binding it up again. It was just as well, Miss Tolerance thought, that she had eaten nothing more than broth.

  “I suppose I cannot persuade you to lie abed for a few days and give this a chance to heal?” As Marianne finished the question another whore looked in at the door. Mrs. Lisette Lipper, short, plump and usually rather lazy and amiable, was all a-rage. Her dark eyes were wide under scowling brows, and her diction was decidedly less elegant than was required upstairs.

  “Mary, Mrs. B’s man was at me just now. I told him I had a man coming and he done this to me!” Lisette extended her arm to display a fierce ring of red flesh. “Twisted it proper, like. Then give me a kiss and said he’d take his due later!”

  Marianne and Miss Tolerance exchanged looks.

  “It was Mr. Tickenor?” Marianne asked carefully.

  “I just said so, didn’t I? You ast—asked—the other day if I’d had any problem with ‘im—him—and I hadn’t, then. But tonight—And I know Annie has too, only she just lifted her skirts and let him take what he wanted.”

  “Mrs. B’s rules—” Marianne started.

  “I know, but he’s got Mrs. B’s ear, and what was Annie to do? Spit in his eye? Call for Keefe?”

  Miss Tolerance was conscious, first, of Marianne’s eye upon her, and second, of her own exhaustion. “Now?”

  Marianne was regretful. “I really think so, and Sarah dear, we need you by. I know your aunt has been tetchy of late, but she does set store by what you tell her, and this ain’t going to be a pleasant conversation at all.”

  Miss Tolerance nodded. Marianne had finished bandaging her arm. Returning her arm to her sleeve cost her a moment of pain severe enough to fill her mouth with the taste of it. Then she was dressed and buttoned and ready. She took a moment to summon her resolve, then: “Let us go up,” Miss Tolerance said. “We’ll need Harry as well.”

  “I’ll fetch him,” Lisette offered, and went ahead.

  The four: Marianne, Lisette, Harry and Miss Tolerance, met outside Mrs. Brereton’s sitting room. Harry was dressed for the evening custom in shirt and waistcoat, a kerchief knotted romantically round his throat like a highwayman; he attempted to carry himself bravely, but he could barely raise his eyes from the floor, and rubbed his thumb and forefingers apprehensively.

  Miss Tolerance arranged her features as sympathetically as possible. “Come, Harry.” She put her arm through his in a friendly manner. “Mrs. Brereton needs to know what has been happening. Come,” she said again. “I will not let anyone hurt you.”

  The boy looked down at her from his spindly height, his lips twisted in a sad smile.

  Mrs. Brereton was taking tea with Mr. Tickenor at the small round table near the window. The drapes were drawn, the candles lit, and the chiffonier nearby was piled with evidence of the meal just past. The bawd regarded the group in her doorway with no little amazement.

  “Should I say good evening?” Her voice was dry.

  “I hope so, aunt.” Miss Tolerance said nothing to Tickenor. At the sight of the older man Harry took a step back, but Miss Tolerance had prepared for his anxiety. She hugged the arm looped in her own closer and led him into the room. On her other side Marianne and Lisette stepped forward.

  Tickenor’s face became blank and watchful.

  Mrs. Brereton appeared to be in a reasonable state of mind; she saw Harry’s distress at once. “Well, Harry? What’s amiss?”

  Harry shook his head; his skin had taken on a mottled, unhealthy color. Miss Tolerance doubted he would say anything unless force to do; it was enough that he was here.

  “Two nights ago I found Harry behind my house, ma’am. Weeping. He was afraid he would be beaten and turned off.”

  “Turned off?” Mrs. Brereton’s tone made the idea ridiculous. “Good God, boy, unless you have been brawling in the street or stealing the plate, why would you think any such thing? Now and again a patron may become…too enthused, but as for beating, this is no birching house. You are not required to cater to such tastes if you dislike it; I only ask you be polite in your refusal. Why would you be turned off? Has someone threatened you? Who?”

  Harry shook his head again.

  “It was not a patron, aunt.” Miss Tolerance looked deliberately at Tickenor. “Nor is Harry the only one to experience this gentleman’s attentions.”

  Mrs. Brereton followed her niece’s gaze and her own expression hardened.

  “I know you do not like Mr. Tickenor, Sarah. Perhaps you feel he has cut your expectations in half. But to concoct a tale—”

  “Aunt, I am here only because I found Harry weeping behind the outhouse, afraid he would be punished for what he had been forced to, and fearful of what would happen if he spoke up. I think if you talk to Emma or Lisette—” Miss Tolerance turned to nod at Mrs. Lipper—”Or Annie? Yes, Annie, you will find that Mr. Tickenor has been very even handed in their attentions.”

  “His attentions. But they know my rules. They would have come to me.”

  “They are coming to you now. They might have come earlier, but you have made it plain you do not wish to hear a word against your betrothed. So you have pitched one rule against the other; how were they to know which rule trumps?”

  Mrs. Brereton turned from her niece back to Harry. “Tell me what happened, boy.” Her voice was gentler now.

  In broken sentences Harry related his story: Tickenor, the closet, the threats and the sex that followed them. Throughout the whole Tickenor looked out the window as if nothing being related was the slightest bit out of the ordinary. Harry finished with, “It’s the truth, ma’am, as God is
my witness.”

  “Yes, Harry. I’m sure you think it’s so,” Mrs. Brereton said absently. Miss Tolerance had a moment of fear; hearing this, would her aunt still side with Tickenor? “Lisette? You have something to tell me?”

  The whore stepped closer to her mistress, her wrist extended. The circle of bruised flesh was still visible. “Not an hour ago Mr. Tickenor tried to have me, too, ma’am. When I told him I wouldn’t—I’ve a caller coming soon, even if I wanted to break your rule, which I do not—he did that, ma’am. Then told me he’d take me later.”

  There was silence except for the whickering of the candles near the window.

  “Very well. If you expect a caller, don’t keep him waiting. I’ll speak to you later if I have need.” Mrs. Brereton spoke to her fiancé. “Gerard? What have you to say of all this?”

  Tickenor smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Say? What is there to say? Are you going to take the word of a whore—and a molly-whore—over mine?”

  “My dear, I deal with whores all day long. I find my people are generally truthful. If I call Anna and Emma to ask them about this, what will they tell me?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Tickenor rose and stalked to the curtained window. “If you mean to be jealous—I was merely—”

  “Merely sampling the wares to test for quality?” Miss Tolerance murmured.

  “Oh, well, you, you quean,” Tickenor was venomous. “Your auntie knows better than to believe a word comes out of your mouth.”

  “Does she, sir? That would make me sad.”

  “Be quiet, Sarah. You will muddy waters that are suddenly becoming quite clear.” But Mrs. Brereton did not sound angry, merely impatient with distraction. “Gerard, as you have acknowledged sampling the wares—”

  “They came to me, all of them, offering it—”

  “And you slapped Harry and wrung Lisette’s wrist for their presumption?” Miss Tolerance could not restrain herself.

  “Sarah, I asked you to be quiet. I am able to draw my own conclusions. Gerard, why would any of my people impose upon you in such a fashion?”

  He shrugged. “To get upon my good side, I suppose. What is the to-do? They’re there for the taking. Perhaps they fancied me.”

  Harry, still at Miss Tolerance’s side, shook his head. “Not ever, ma’am. We know better.”

  Mrs. Brereton nodded her head. She had not turned to look at Tickenor; perhaps that bothered him as much as the accusations being leveled. “It’s not like you to be jealous, Thea. None of it meant—”

  “Jealousy? Is that what you think? ‘Tis business, Gerard. You should recognize it as a businessman. It is…pilferage, as much as a milliner’s clerk who takes home a packet of pins.”

  “I am no clerk, madam.” Tickenor seemed more incensed at this than at the accusations that had come before.

  “You are right. You are no clerk, who might have been underfed or underpaid and thus convinced himself that it was only right to take a little of what his employer has so much of. You stole from my house, and it appears that you have bullied my staff into breaking my rule.”

  “Rule?”

  Mrs. Brereton turned to the boy, Harry, who was white-faced and fidgeting, his gaze going back and forth between his employer and Mr. Tickenor. She said encouragingly, “You can tell me what rule Mr. Tickenor asked you to thwart, cannot you?”

  The boy swallowed and looked sideways at the other man.

  Mrs. Brereton smiled. “You may tell us, Harry. No harm will come to you.”

  “We’re not to give away what people will pay for, ma’am.” Harry was still young enough that his voice cracked at the end of the sentence.

  “Thank you, my dear. You have been very brave. Go on, now. I believe Lord Holyfield has promised to call tonight? And Lisette, you have a caller as well. Go along, both of you.” Mrs. Brereton watched them leave the room before she turned back to Tickenor. “You not only sought to steal from me, but you attacked the discipline of my house. And for what, Gerard? To claim your power like a hound pissing on the doorstep?”

  Mr. Tickenor returned to her side, his face an unconvincing mask of conciliation. “For the love of God, Dorothea, in another week we’re to be wed. How am I to maintain discipline if you permit—”

  “I have no problem maintaining discipline, Gerard, in part because of the very rules you broke. I may have told you I hoped for your help; I never said you were to have the whip hand here.”

  Miss Tolerance had a fleeting sense of pity for Mr. Tickenor, for it seemed to her that her aunt had said almost exactly that, and now he found his license revoked.

  Tickenor came back from the window to Mrs. Brereton’s side. “Is it the sex that troubles you? I did not mean to wound your pride, and I did not perfectly understand the rules of the house. I may think you are over nice—”

  Mrs. Brereton’s expression was so cold that Miss Tolerance was unnerved. She wondered that Tickenor, his arm around the madam’s waist, did not seem at all troubled.

  “This is not jealousy, Gerard. It is commonsense. Once the staff start in to playing among themselves they develop little loyalties and factions, and the house is divided against itself, and there is trouble. But you have done more than that. Even the scullery boy knows better than to steal from my table or put his fingers in my pies.”

  Tickenor stiffened at her tone, but made one more attempt to make amends. He offered his hand to Mrs. Brereton, palm up as if to emphasize his vulnerability. “If we have mistaken each other, Dorothea, I am heartily sorry for it. If you like it better, when we are wed I will take no part in the business at all. I have business of my own to attend to, after all, and –”

  Mrs. Brereton pushed the hand aside. “Gerard, you do not think that, after you have fucked half my staff including a green boy, I still plan to marry you?” A pitying smile played on her lips.

  Tickenor withdrew his hand and looked at Mrs. Brereton as if the sheer force of his gaze would win her capitulation. It did not. After a long and plangent silence Tickenor threw his shoulders back, a man affronted. Red as a grape, he pushed between Marianne and Miss Tolerance without a word and left the room.

  Mrs. Brereton spoke into the silence. “It seems I had misjudged Mr. Tickenor and caused some anxiety among the staff. Marianne, will you tell them all I am sorry for it? Sarah, my dear, will you take some tea? And tell me what on earth happened to your arm?”

  As easily as that Mrs. Brereton dismissed the matter of her engagement. Marianne and Miss Tolerance exchanged a glance of mutual perplexion, as much disconcerted by this volte face as they had been by Mrs. Brereton’s engagement. The madam herself appeared untroubled by the dismissal of her former betrothed. She sat again at the table, rang for another cup, and looked at her niece with the expectation that she would join her.

  Which, after a moment, she did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Miss Tolerance slept deeply. The combined effect within a se’ennight of a blow to the head and a shot to the arm had worn upon her. The considerable emotion of the day did no less so, and it was a relief to wake in the morning knowing that Evadne Thorpe was safe, reunited with her sister, and that her own task was completed. She rose, called for hot water from Mrs. Brereton’s, and bathed and dressed leisurely. The swelling of her arm had subsided enough that she was able to attend to the repair of her Gunnard coat; the coat had required several repairs of a like nature over the years, although this was the first time that shot had been the culprit.

  She was writing letters, her little desk on her lap and her left arm secured in the sling, when Keefe knocked.

  “Miss Sarah, a message for you, urgent.”

  She bade the porter enter. Instead he opened her door to admit a liveried servant—Wheeler, the man from Lord Lyne’s house whom she had interviewed. Unease stung her.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, miss,” he began. “Miss Clarissa—Lady Brereton—she sent me to beg you come to the house. Lord Lyne’s house. Miss Evie’s come home and Lady
Brereton fears there’ll be a ruckus.”

  Miss Tolerance’s first thought was to refuse the summons. What more do they expect of me? She was hurt, she was tired, she had completed the assignment for which she had been hired. Further, she barely knew Miss Thorpe. What influence could she be presumed to have with her? What reason to guard the peace of Lord Lyne’s household?

  Except that Lady Brereton was her brother’s wife and Evadne Thorpe was therefore, in some wise, her sister. Though the connection was unknown to the other women, Miss Tolerance knew it. They were family, and of all Evadne Thorpe’s family, Miss Tolerance was the only one who had experience that approached in any way Evadne’s own. Not raped, but ruined. I have gone before her to that brutal country; must I not assist her to find her way?

  Perhaps that was sentimental twaddle. Still, a confrontation between Evadne Thorpe and her father was likely to be explosive and unlikely to benefit anyone. Miss Tolerance put aside her writing desk and took up her bonnet.

  In the carriage returning to Duke of York Street she learned a little more from Wheeler. Lord Lyne had gone out that morning and Miss Thorpe arrived only a little time after. Her return had caused an immediate sensation in the servants’ hall, with much joy by which Miss Evie had seemed curiously unmoved. The two Mr. Thorpes and Lady Brereton (whose husband had removed them to Claridge’s Hotel only the night before, a fact which clearly troubled Wheeler) had been summoned with great excitement, and an emotional scene of reunion confidently predicted.

  “Only it’s all wrong, miss. I cannot tell you how or why, but—when Lady Brereton arrived she didn’t seem happy but worried-like, and Sir Adam behind her had the same face on. They went flying up to Miss Evie’s sitting room and never come down, and then Mr. John arrived and went up, but come back long enough to send me to fetch you.”