The name Miss Tolerance had given the boy was murmured among them. “Josie Vo-sie,” one of the boys chortled, and several of them began to chant the name. So much, she thought drily, for circumspection and a quiet interview with Mrs. Vose.
“A penny for the one who sweeps my path,” she offered firmly. “And”—she raised her voice slightly—“tuppence to the one who brings me to Mrs. Vose’s rooms.”
That quieted the noise. The boys who held the brooms jostled each other, pressing forward to get her custom. In most of the others she recognized a speculative expression which suggested they were wondering how to cozen tuppence from this well-heeled mark. Miss Tolerance chose the first boy to sweep the ordure and muck from the crossing. Then, with another look at the boys, she beckoned to one whom she noted was looking, not at her, but at a building across the street and several doors distant. The other boys protested loudly as the boy pushed forward.
“You know Mrs. Vose?”
“I know a Josie, got a lot of names.” His eyes stayed upon Miss Tolerance’s face. After a moment they widened, and he looked around him to see if anyone else had discerned her sex.
Miss Tolerance called his attention back. “What does this Josie look like?”
“Pretty, like. Clean, for a whore—”
“Yah, you’d know, woun’t you? Your mam and sister is whores!” one of the boys said cheerily. This started a small riot of amusement.
The boy ignored them. “She got dark hair, and dresses fine some times. Other times she dresses like—like t’ parson’s mother.”
Miss Tolerance nodded. “Show me.” She gave the sweep his penny and held out her hand to the other boy, and after a moment he slid his own, cold, moist and filthy, into it. They left the crowd of boys behind, crossing Balcombe Street and entering a building opposite. The boy led her into a public hallway that was lit only by a lantern on the ground floor, then up two flights of narrow stairs.
“That’s ’er door,” he said. He held out his hand for his reward.
Miss Tolerance put two tuppenny pieces into it. “A reward for prompt service and discretion,” she said. “You might want to go out the back and give your friends the slip.”
The boy snorted. “Yeah, I might. Ta, miss. Sir, I mean.”
He was gone, and Miss Tolerance knocked on the door. It was opened immediately by a young, fair-haired woman in a work gown and several shawls. She had a scarred lip and the squint of
nearsightedness, and the scent of gin hung about her. Miss Tolerance asked for Mrs. Vose.
“Who? Oh, right. Josie. She don’t go much by that name round a’ here, sir. You come on in, I’ll see if she’s to home.”
“What name does she go by?” Miss Tolerance asked, escaping from the dark hallway into a somewhat brighter room.
“Mostly called Josie Whipsmart in these parts. ‘Mrs. Vose’ is for her gentry followers.” She gave Miss Tolerance a coquettish look. “My name is Susie Lickmettle, dearie. In case Josie don’t give you what you want.”
“And my name is Sarah Tolerance, Mrs. Lickmettle. You said you would see if Mrs. Whipsmart will see me?”
Expressions of dismay, revelation and disappointment chased across the woman’s face. Then she laughed, called Miss Tolerance a caution, and left her for the moment. In her absence Miss Tolerance looked around, noting that the room was tidy and fairly clean, lit with tallow candles which had a reek of mutton fat, and showed evidence of occupancy by several persons.
“Miss Tolerance?”
The woman Miss Tolerance knew as Josette Vose stood in the doorway. She wore a dark green wrapper and an expression of surprise. Her feet were bare.
“Mrs. Vose. Or am I to call you Mrs. Whipsmart?” Miss Tolerance bowed.
“Oh, Vose will do, as that is how we began.” Josette Vose motioned Miss Tolerance to follow her into the next room, while Susie Lickmettle pushed past her to return to the outer room, sat down by the grate, and took up some knitting. Miss Tolerance followed Mrs. Vose into a room which, like the first, was well ordered, if very crowded. There were three cots against the wall, two wardrobes, two chests, and a single chair, all crammed into the room. On one of the cots a woman slept heavily. The square blue gin bottle near her outstretched hand suggested that she would not wake to interrupt their conversation.
“So you’ve smoked me,” Mrs. Vose said coolly. She waved Miss Tolerance to the chair and seated herself on the nearest cot. Today she was neither the severe duenna of Half Moon Street nor the glittering courtesan of Camille Touvois’ salon. Her dark hair was
parted and swept smoothly in a soft knot at the nape of her neck. When she leaned forward the green wrapper gaped at the neck, showing several inches of white chemise.
“It only required a little willingness to ask questions,” she answered.
“And you hope I’ll answer some of your asking.” Mrs. Vose’s chin thrust forward militantly. “Why should I?”
“Perhaps to help your friend Anne d’Aubigny? Or to oblige me in hopes that I’ll not inform His Highness the Duke of Cumberland of your connection to a scandalous murder? To keep me from telling Bow Street that your relations with the late Chevalier d’Aubigny were more carnal than cousinly? Or possibly because I can reward you generously if you assist me.”
“All excellent reasons.”
“I forgot to include, of course, your fondness for the late chevalier.”
Mrs. Vose gave a snort of laughter. “Of course.
Poor
Etienne.” She leaned back against a pile of cushions in an attitude of sensual relaxation. “Ask your questions.”
“I will, thank you. When did you last see the Chevalier d’Aubigny?”
“A little more than a fortnight before his death. We were both at Madame Touvois’ salon. That’s where I met him: Madame Touvois is a knacky matchmaker.”
“So I have heard. There was nothing between them?”
Mrs. Vose seemed to find the question funny. “Nothing and everything,” she said. “What is the expression? Thick as thieves. Not for fucking, though. It was the challenge, each one trying to get the upper hand of the other. It drove him mad that she wouldn’t take him at his own estimation—”
“And that was?”
“As a dangerous man. Which he could be, I can tell you that. And it drove her mad that no matter how she abused him, he kept trying to have the mastery of her. As good as a play, it was, to watch them together. I think they were beginning to tire of the game, though.”
“Why do you think so?”
Mrs. Vose shrugged. “Something in the way Madame Touvois looked at d’Aubigny. Nothing more than that.”
“Even the most exciting relationship may grow stale after a while.” Miss Tolerance added, as if upon the same thought, “And you were his mistress for how long?”
Mrs. Vose did not miss the jibe, but appeared more amused than angered. “A little more than a year, until he ran out of money.”
“Ran out of money?” Back to d’Aubigny’s finances again! “When did that happen?”
“As I said, a few weeks before his death. There was never any illusion of true love, Miss Tolerance. A man of d’Aubigny’s sort knows what he is, and pays for his pleasure. When
he
could no longer pay, I would no longer stay.” She smiled as if the rhyme pleased her.
“Now that is curious, Mrs. Vose; at about the time you say you were leaving the chevalier because he said he could not afford you, he was paying all the debts he had racked up around town—with money whose source I cannot find. I was hoping you could suggest such a source.”
“I? I could tell you a great number of things about the chevalier, Miss Tolerance, but where he got his money ain’t one of them. I thought he had married all the money he owned.”
“You knew some of his intimate friends, I presume. None of them might have loaned him the money?”
“None of them was monstrous intelligent, but neither was they stupid enough to loan money to D’Aubigny. He spent it far too easily on what amused him.”
“Then I may assume that his inability to pay you what you wanted was because you no longer amused him?”
“No, you may assume no such thing. His play had got too rough for me. It’s a thing that happens with some men like him: after a time the old games don’t get a rise in’em. They want more. According to my thinking, a rise in the stakes demands a rise in payment. The chevalier and I disagreed upon the point, and we parted company. I had thought it was simply because he hadn’t the silver.”
“And you went to work for Mrs. Lasher in Green Street.”
“You are well informed.”
“You are kind to notice it. It is curious, though, that Mrs.
d’Aubigny swears you were in the house only a day or two before the chevalier’s death.”
“She is mistaken.”
“Ah,” Miss Tolerance said. “Yet, given the friendliness of her feelings for you, I am surprised that she should make such a mistake. And then, after the chevalier’s death, you went back to the house?”
“I felt sorry for her.”
“How kind of you,” Miss Tolerance said drily. “There was no other reason?”
“What a suspicious mind you have, Miss Tolerance. The little missus is a lost soul—her marriage was her great disaster. It deprived her of friends and fortune and innocence, all at once. It wasn’t hard to be friendly to her—grateful for crumbs, she was, after a year or so of M’sieur d’Aubigny. When I heard of d’Aubigny’s death I thought she’d be overset, so I went to her.”
“How kind.”
“Wasn’t it?” Mrs. Vose laughed. “Don’t think me a paragon, I beg you. I went by as soon as I’d heard of the murder, and the poor little missus wept and begged me to stay. Like a soggy kitten she was, curled up crying upon my shoulder. How could I refuse her? And to tell the truth, she needed a bit of protecting, those first few days. The staff was all in a tear—as how should they not be?—and her brother had filled them with tales of murderers waiting under the bed to kill them all.”
“You don’t believe in murderers under the bed?”
Mrs. Vose shook her head, all levity gone. “The chevalier wasn’t a man much liked. If someone came to kill him, the job was done. I doubt anyone is waiting to kill again in that house.”
“I am of the same opinion,” Miss Tolerance agreed. “The question remains, however, who
did
kill him?” She spoke with rather more force than she had intended.
“I did not,” Mrs. Vose said firmly. “I have no idea who might have.”
Miss Tolerance believed the truth of Mrs. Vose’s first statement, but not the second. The woman knew more than she said, and she suspected someone.
“For a man so unpleasant, it is curious how many people have not the first idea who might have killed him.”
Mrs. Vose smiled politely. The two women sat for a few minutes listening to the snoring of the drunken woman on the cot a few feet away. At last Miss Tolerance rose to her feet. Mrs. Vose stopped her with a hand on her elbow.
“May I ask you a question now, Miss Tolerance? How is it you style yourself Miss rather than Mrs.? You do not pretend, walking about the streets in such an outfit, to be anything other than Fallen?”
“No, ma’am. But I do not pretend to be a whore, either.”
“Was that supposed to sting?”
Miss Tolerance thought. “Perhaps it was,” she said. “I have little patience with half truths. They are ineffective guardians, and generally serve to wave a flag that something has not been said. This discussion would be far more profitable for both of us if you dealt straight with me.”
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Vose said. “But profit is not the only motive for a woman in my position—despite your obvious belief. What does it profit a woman that she gain thirty pieces of silver and a broken neck?” She rose from the bed. “Now, Miss Tolerance, I must send you away. I have business in Green Street this evening, and it is high time I was dressed and on my way. Perhaps you will come again some time and we can continue this discussion.”
She offered her hand. Miss Tolerance put a ten-shilling note in it.
“If you ever decide to speak plain truth, Mrs. Vose, I hope you will let me know.”
“It is unlikely, but I shall remember.” Josette Vose folded the note thoughtfully.
“Do you really fear for your life?” Miss Tolerance asked at the door.
“Always,” Mrs. Vose said. “This is not a safe world for a woman alone.”
I
t was dark when Miss Tolerance emerged from the house on Balcombe Street, and an icy rain had begun. Miss Tolerance pulled her hat down low and the collar of her greatcoat up higher and began to walk toward Marylebone Street, looking for a hackney carriage. There were, of course, none to be had. It was not a great walk back to Manchester Square, and she set her mind to it, thinking less of the interview just past than of a change of clothing and a cup of warm soup and a good fire. There was little light on the street, and the weather had driven most foot travelers inside for their suppers. She turned south on Baker Street and plied her way steadily along the dark streets to turn again on Blandford Street.
She did not hear her attacker until he was just upon her.
She had been walking with her head down against the rain and her hands in her pockets, trying to make connections between Mrs. Vose’s testimony and other facts in the case. There was a long low rumble of thunder which all but swallowed the scuff of boot leather upon the cobbles just behind her. She raised her head, her right hand already pushing through her coat for the hilt of her sword, when she was circled by strong arms that pulled her backward, all but off her feet. The man—it was undoubtedly a
man from the strength and size of him—was taller than she and heavy, with a sizable gut against which the arms pinned her. Without thought Miss Tolerance raised her foot and brought the heel down hard; at the same moment she drove her elbow back with force.
The man
whuffed
at the blow but did not release her; her heel, which had come down on nothing more useful than an icy pavement stone, hurt. She raised her foot again and brought it down again, this time hitting her target squarely.
He swore, dropped one arm, and staggered back. Miss Tolerance pulled away, her hands free now, and made to draw her sword, but the man had raised his own hand and dealt her a blow across the face with enough force to knock her onto her back upon the stones. Her head hit a set of stone steps hard, and her hat went flying across the flags.
Miss Tolerance thought dizzily,
Either he does not know I am a woman or this fellow is no gentleman.
As if to confirm her judgment the man kicked viciously at Miss Tolerance’s side. The Gunnard coat took the worst of the first kick, but the second one landed squarely upon her ribs with such force that it rolled her over onto her knees. He tried a third kick, but Miss Tolerance, kneeling, grabbed for his boot. She did not catch it, but the man lost his balance avoiding her hand and fell back several steps. Aching for breath, Miss Tolerance rose to her feet and wheeled around to face the man.
She could see nothing of his face: a scarf was wrapped around the lower half, and his hat obscured the eyes and brow. He regained his balance and jammed one hand into his pocket urgently. Seeking a weapon, Miss Tolerance guessed, and reached into her pocket for her own pocketknife, which she kept for fighting close in. Her hand was briefly fouled in the folds of her coat, and her assailant lunged at her, blade in hand. Miss Tolerance sidestepped the thrust and brought her left arm down so strongly that his knife arm was thrown off and the knife flew into the shadows. Both she and her attacker followed the trajectory of the knife; she recovered first and swept a kick at the man’s shins which, in a stroke of luck, caught him just behind the knee, taking his legs out from under him altogether. The man fell backward, hit his head
with an audible thud, and rolled until he lay, face down, half in the gutter. Miss Tolerance, her knife finally in her hand, looked down at her fallen opponent.
Miss Tolerance inspected him gingerly; his hat was still jammed onto his head, hiding his face, and she could not tell if he was conscious or not. After a moment she decided he must be stunned; lying in a puddle of icy water with rain rolling down his neck was too uncomfortable a position for imposture. She reached down, gasping at the pain along her ribs and in her head as she did so, and attempted the roll the fellow over to get a glimpse of his face.
A shout came from the far end of the street. “Oy, you fellow! What are you doing?” The shouter raised a lantern as if its thin light could illuminate Miss Tolerance and her opponent. The watch.
Miss Tolerance assessed her alternatives quickly. Stay, and perhaps be believed when she explained that the man had attacked her, but more likely be taken in by the watch and spend the evening showing off her bruises and hoping she would be believed—particularly if her attacker were brought along to tell his side of the story. Or run, and hope to sort out the trouble another day.
She turned and ran, vanishing into the shadows as quickly as the icy street and her bruises allowed.
K
eefe’s face, when he opened the door, told Miss Tolerance a good deal about her own appearance.
“Holy God, Miss Sarah! What happened?”
“Footpad,” she said tersely. “For God’s sake, Keefe, don’t make a fuss. I’ll be right enough shortly.” But she knew her shudders of cold and shock could be seen even through her greatcoat. “How is my aunt?”
“Ill call Marianne,” he said. Not quite an answer. “You go into the blue salon, miss. There’s a good fire there, and no one about right now. I’ll have Cook send up some soup and wine.”
Miss Tolerance permitted herself to be steered from the hallway to the first floor and the blue salon which had, as promised, a fine fire. She took off her Gunnard coat, gasping as she did so. Keefe took the sodden greatcoat and said nothing. Miss Tolerance’s
thanks were as much for his tact as his service. She sat gingerly in a chair by the fire and gratefully felt the warmth seep into her. She was aware of stickiness along one side of her face, but application of her kerchief to the most painful site slowed the bleeding, and she was able to sit, relaxed enough, waiting for her soup.
An uncertain number of minutes later, Keefe returned with Marianne.
“What’s happened to you, then?” Marianne asked calmly.
Miss Tolerance tried to smile. The effort was not particularly successful. “Footpad,” she said again. “Like a stupid flat, I was caught unawares with my hands in my pockets. It’s nothing. It will pass.”
Marianne rolled her eyes and asked Keefe to leave the tray he had brought. Miss Tolerance realized it bore, not food as she had hoped, but a basin, bandages, and several jars of ointment.
“Marianne really, there is no need—how is my aunt?”
Marianne shook her head. “First things first. We must see to you. Thank you, Keefe. If you would bring the food up in a quarter hour? Now”—she turned back to Miss Tolerance—“let’s have a look at the damage. No, don’t bother to push me off. Do you think because you were caught off your guard you cannot ask for help? A broken head needs attention no matter how you come by it.” She ran careful hands along the crown of Miss Tolerance’s head, discovering several considerable lumps but no bleeding.
“Well, your brains got a rattling, I don’t doubt, but they’re all in a piece.”
Miss Tolerance inclined her head in acknowledgment, or would have done had the gesture not caused such pain. Seeing this, Marianne insisted she shed coat, waistcoat and shirt so that the state of her ribs might be ascertained. She made clucking noises at the bruises on her friend’s left side.
“It’s a good thing your breasts were bound. You’d likely have broken ribs otherwise. Nasty fellow that was.” She took up a pot of salve from the tray.
“He was,” Miss Tolerance agreed. “But about my aunt?”
“In good time, Sarah. You look like you was run down by the stagecoach.” Marianne wrapped a bandage several times around Miss Tolerance’s chest, tied it off, and handed her a dressing gown. “Mrs. B ain’t going to change while you get yourself
patched up. And patched,” she said judiciously, examining her friend’s face, “is just about the right word for it. Didn’t care what he did to your face, did he?”
“I don’t think care for my looks was his first objective, no. How bad is it?”
Marianne had wet a rag and begun to sponge carefully at Miss Tolerance’s brow and cheek. “Black eye for sure on the right, maybe two,” she said. “I don’t think the nose is broken—no, still straight, there’s luck. A good lot of blood, though. Ahhh, there we are.” She pressed upon the spot to which Miss Tolerance had lately applied her gore-soaked handkerchief. “Nasty deep gash, that. Looks as though it was torn—did your bruiser wear a ring? We’d best to have the surgeon sew it up for you.”
Marianne’s matter-of-fact pressure on the cut had hurt enough to cause Miss Tolerance to see sparks. She waited until her dizziness passed, then attempted to assure her friend that the surgeon would not be necessary.
“Don’t be an idiot, Sarah. He’s upstairs with your aunt. It won’t take a moment to have him down to see to you. And here is your soup.” Marianne took the tray from Keefe and dispatched him to summon the surgeon.
“Now will you tell me how my aunt is?” The fire had at last warmed her through, the soup smelled comfortably of chicken and barley, and she was aware of a pleasant drowsiness to which she could not yet succumb. “Why is the surgeon here?”
“Doctor suggested she should be bled tonight and tomorrow morning. The fever’s almost gone now, and she’s sleeping—”
“Has she roused at all?”
Marianne shook her head. “Not yet. She began to stir a bit this afternoon, murmured a little, but with no words I could make head or tails of. The doctor—he shakes his head. He won’t say he’s worried, but he did say the fever alone wouldn’t be enough to knock her to pieces this way.”
Miss Tolerance frowned at her soup. “So the doctor knows nothing except she should be bled. What do you think?”
Marianne shrugged. “I do not know what to make of it. A feverish cold, which is certainly what it appeared she had, ought not to—but here is Mr. Pynt.” She rose and curtsied to the surgeon.
Miss Tolerance, tired enough to feel that her disabilities ought to be catered to, did not rise.
Pynt was a man of middle years and middle size with highly starched collar points which required him to turn his whole body in order to view Miss Tolerance’s wounds. He took the seat which Marianne had vacated, wiped his hands upon his kerchief and gingerly touched the gash on Miss Tolerance’s forehead.
“How came this to happen?” he asked. He clearly disapproved of ladies with wounds that smacked of the prize ring.
“I mistook the cellar steps for a door. Does it require the needle?” Annoyance worked against warmth and exhaustion. Miss Tolerance felt suddenly more awake.
“I would say so, madam. Although ’twill leave a scar no matter how it is treated.”
“Then perhaps it ought not be sewn?” Marianne suggested.
“I did not say that. I merely did not want to give rise to expectations in the young woman that her looks would not be affected by the surgery.”
“If that is your only concern, sir, then pray get on with the business. I do not live by my looks.” Miss Tolerance turned away long enough to finish drinking her soup. Pynt observed that a medicinal dose of spirituous liquor was likely to be more helpful to his patient.
“Perhaps later,” Miss Tolerance said, and turned back to the doctor.
The procedure took no more than ten minutes, but it was more painful than Miss Tolerance had expected. Because she had taken the surgeon in dislike, she managed not to make a sound. At the end, when she inspected the inch of tidy stitches, she had to acknowledge that the surgeon knew his business. Mr. Pynt washed his hands and instructed Miss Tolerance to bathe the wound frequently and rub on a little of a salve he would send round, in hope of avoiding infection. He bowed to both women and took his leave, promising to return in the morning for Mrs. Brereton’s second bleeding.
Miss Tolerance sat by the fire for a while longer, feeling tired and weak. At last she went upstairs to look in on her aunt, whom she found deeply asleep. The rigidity which had characterized her earlier
repose appeared to have passed off, and Miss Tolerance was hopeful that perhaps the doctor’s advice and the surgeon’s ministrations would prove correct. She stayed but a few minutes, then wrapped herself in a shawl pressed on her by Marianne, and went downstairs and through the garden to her own little cottage. Someone had gone across and laid and lit a fire, and the downstairs room was warm. She had been drowsy earlier; now Miss Tolerance was aching and wakeful. She poured a glass of the spirituous liquor earlier prescribed by the surgeon and drank it in thoughtful silence.
A
mong the other talents and qualities which had informed Miss Tolerance’s choice of occupation, she was a fast healer. Even so, she woke in the morning aching fiercely from head to toe, and resolved to beg some arnica from the cook, who kept a well-stocked shelf of household simples and salves. She had just put her kettle on the fire when the kitchen maid, Jess, arrived at her door with the mail and a message: Mrs. Brereton had awakened.
The rain had stopped, but the sky was dark, and a brisk wind set the branches of the trees dancing against her window.
Someone had cleaned her Gunnard greatcoat and the other clothes she had removed the night before; Jess had left them folded upon her table. Miss Tolerance felt no need for men’s dress today, and put on her blue wool gown and a warm shawl. She did not look in the mirror when she pinned up her hair; she knew her face was swollen, and could imagine the extent of the discoloration. Why wound her vanity with the sight? She pulled the shawl up tightly and stepped across the garden to visit her aunt.