The Sleeping Partner (6 page)

Miss Tolerance rose. “Thank you, ma’am. You have been most helpful.”

Mrs. Codfinger nodded. “So I ‘ave.” She smiled again.

“If you hear more of the girl, Mrs. Codfinger, send word to me at Tarsio’s Club in Henry Street at once, please. You will be rewarded if your information allows me to return the child to her family.” She added that last lest Mrs. Codfinger be tempted to invent further information.

Mrs. Codfinger tssked. “Henry Street? Ain’t we fine!” She gulped down the remains of her gin-and-water. “Tarsio’s Club? Well I ‘ope this reward of yours is
substantial,
for it’s money out me own pocket if I see that one and ‘and her back to you, and that’s the truth. A very pretty girl.”

Miss Tolerance thanked the bawd for her restraint, reiterated that the reward would indeed be substantial and, after a mutual exchange of courtesies, the two parted company. As she went through the stableyard Miss Tolerance saw Mrs. Codfinger’s companion watching the passengers descend from the Lincoln Flyer.

The trip to Bermondsey took some time, as the carriage had to thread its way through streets clogged with vehicles, animals, and pedestrians of all description, and to cross the Thames at the London Bridge. The jarvey, perhaps concerned for the sensibilities of his passenger, tried when the carriage reached the south side of the Thames, to avoid the sordid streets around the docks by driving a considerable distance south—until Miss Tolerance rapped sharply on the roof and announced that she would not pay the fare for a trip to Lisbon, and expected to be taken to her destination the most direct way possible. The jarvey protested a little, then turned his horses east, through neighborhoods both ramshackle and depressing. Miss Tolerance, who had seen these streets before and on foot, felt no obligation to gaze out at the misery on view there. She closed her eyes.

After a quarter hour the smells and sounds suggested that the carriage was moving into a better quarter of the city. Miss Tolerance looked out to find that they were in a neat neighborhood, well built-up, with a handsome church and a crowded churchyard to her right, and a street full of shops to her left. The jarvey pulled up before a well-kept building with a prosperous-looking bootmaker’s shop on the ground floor. Miss Tolerance alit and looked about her. Three little boys of no more than six years sat at the foot of the door into the building, poking at the remains of a sparrow with a pocketknife.

“Do any of you gentlemen know Mrs. Harris?”

The boys guiltily pulled away from the corpse. Two of them stared at the third; he looked at Miss Tolerance, frowning.

“She’s my granny,” he said. “What you want with ‘er?” He had a sharp, pointed nose, dark eyes, and a fall of dark, dirty hair, and stared at Miss Tolerance impertinently.

“Just a few minutes of talk. Will you take me to her, please?” Normally Miss Tolerance would have purchased the boy’s assistance with a penny, but she did not like to encourage his sly manner.

“I s’pose. Come along.” With the aplomb of a boy twice his age the child led her across the street, into a wooden-framed house, and down the dark hall to the stairway. “You alone?”

“And if I am?” Miss Tolerance followed him up the stairs, aware that the other two boys had vanished as completely as a sugarloaf dropped in boiling water.

“Usually they comes with friends,” the boy said. “Makes me no mind.”

Who were
they?
“I’m delighted to hear it.” Miss Tolerance could not remember when she had last taken such a dislike to a child. “I’m sure Mrs. Harris is here somewhere.”

“Yehr. Righ’ ‘ere.” The boy shoved hard on a door at the end of the corridor—like most such the hallway was unlit and visitors were expected to find their ways by guess and luck—and the door yielded. “Gran! ‘Ere’s a lady for you.”

He nudged Miss Tolerance forward. She found herself blinking after the dark of the hall. An uncurtained window faced out over the street and filled the room with white sunlight. The room was furnished with a heavy, old-fashioned sofa and two chairs, a table, two lamps, and a rug which, although shabby, had once been of good quality. Miss Tolerance caught a faint whiff of some astringent scent, just under the homelier smells of beeswax and blacking. There was no one in sight, but a creak to the left announced that someone was coming. A moment later a tall, stocky woman of advanced years appeared in the doorway. She wore a gown of blue muslin with a spotless white work-apron, and an old-fashioned muslin cap on her iron-gray hair. Her eyes were a pale, faded blue, and her smile attempted the maternal. She had the steely pleasantness of a senior nursery maid.

“Thank you, Martin. That’ll do.” The boy, who had stood behind Miss Tolerance with his arms crossed as if he thought she might steal the plate, bolted from the room. The woman stepped forward to close the door. “Now, my dear. How can I help you?” Kent-born, Miss Tolerance fancied, but many years in London.

“Are you Mrs. Harris?”

“I am, my dear. Please, come in, come in.” The woman waved a hand at the chairs. “Now, who sent you to me?”

That was a forceful way to begin a conversation with a stranger. “A Mrs. Codfinger, ma’am, says—”

“Mrs.—Did she, then? I’m surprised, I confess it. Rosie Codfinger fancies herself in my line of work, and I’d not ‘ave expected ‘er to turn away a bit of business. Well, ‘tis obliging of her, to be sure.” Mrs. Harris took a seat on the sofa opposite to Miss Tolerance and leaned forward. “Well, my dear—how do you find yourself here?”

Another curious question. “I took a hackney carriage.”

Mrs. Harris shook her head. “Now, sweetheart, all will go better if you are frank with me,” she chided. “How far along.”

“Ma’am?”

Mrs. Harris reached for Miss Tolerance’s hand and patted it between her own two square, callused ones. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “How far along? When did you miss your courses?”

Miss Tolerance sat back. All was suddenly clear to her; how had she not realized it before? “I am not with child, ma’am.”

Mrs. Harris appeared unsurprised by this answer, but an edge came into her voice. “What, do you think it is some sort of illness you have, my dear? Come, come, even ladies will have their fun, and when they find that they must pay the piper the come to me to—”

“You mistake me, ma’am. I am not here to avail myself of your services.” She took a breath. “Perhaps we should start anew. Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Tolerance, and I was sent by Mrs. Codfinger, who said that she had seen you in conversation with a young woman I am seeking to find.”

Mrs. Harris frowned. “I don’t talk about the ladies that come to me, Mrs. Tolerance—”

“
Miss
Tolerance.”

“
Miss
Tolerance?” The woman shrugged. “Well,
Miss
Tolerance, do you think, if word got out that I gabbed, I’d ever see another penny for my services?”

As discretion was one of the most important aspects of Miss Tolerance’s own services, she was sympathetic. “I do understand, ma’am. But I do not believe this young woman came to you to avail herself of your—your services. She has run away from her family, and I am attempting to return her to them.” Miss Tolerance extracted the portrait from her reticule and handed it to the other woman.

Mrs. Harris held the picture out, almost at arm’s length, and squinted at it. Just for a moment Miss Tolerance thought she saw recognition in the older woman’s expression. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry you’ve come for nothing, miss. They’re both pretty girls, but I’ve never seen either one of ‘em. The shorter one looks a bit like Daisy Quiller, from three streets over, but she’d never have the brass to pay for a picture like that.”

She returned the portrait to Miss Tolerance.

“Why would Mrs. Codfinger have told me she had seen you with the girl, ma’am?”

“What would I be doing chatting up girls? I’m not in
that
business.” Mrs. Harris’s disdain was complete. “Rosie Codfinger’s souse enough to imagine any number of things. She’s also the sort would enjoy sending another person off chasing cat-phantoms. I’m that sorry for your time and trouble but I can’t help you. I’m sorry for the girl,’ she added more feelingly. “Gentle-bred thing like that probably don’t know the first thing about what she’s got herself into.”

“My fear is that she is learning, ma’am.” Miss Tolerance rose. “You are quite certain you have never seen her?”

Mrs. Harris stood also. “What, are you calling me a liar? I said I han’t seen her, and that’s God’s truth.” She raised one square hand as if taking her oath. “Now, you’ll oblige me by leaving. I have business to attend to.” She crossed her arms as if to present the sturdiest obstacle possible to continued conversation. Miss Tolerance curtsied and departed.

It appeared that Mrs. Harris had been a waste of her morning. Miss Tolerance went out past Martin and his friends, who had returned to examining the carrion on the front step, and reluctantly moved aside to let her pass. Miss Tolerance sought out her hackney coach where it waited for her.

As she returned to Tarsio’s late that afternoon, Miss Tolerance calculated that she had visited seventeen coaching inns that day, with nothing to show for it except her own growing conviction that Miss Evadne had not left London, with or without a companion, by stage. Unless the girl’s seducer was wealthy enough to hire a private chaise—and Miss Tolerance had not the resources to send inquiries to every posting house on the northern roads—it appeared likely that her quarry was still in London. It was a pleasant thing to have ruled out the rest of England, she thought, but not much comfort when she considered all the places in London where a runaway couple might hide.

No messages awaited her at Tarsio’s. Miss Tolerance bespoke dinner in one of the small withdrawing rooms and went up at once to write a report to Mrs. Brown. She wished, as she did so, that the lady had been more forthcoming. As things were situated it would be nearly impossible to speak with servants in the Brown household (or whatever their name was). It would be difficult to speak to the girl’s friends without alerting them to the possibility of scandal, and that was a real loss. What sixteen year old girl ever nourished a secret passion without confessing it to a friend? There was the governess, turned off before she could be of any help. She wrote a line to ask for the governess’s direction. It was clear to her that her lover’s identity was the key to finding the girl. She finished her note and consigned it to the care of Steen, another of Tarsio’s porters, then fell to her beef and pudding with a sharp appetite.

When she finished her dinner she remained at Tarsio’s for a while, thinking that perhaps someone she had spoken to earlier in the day might seek her out in this more private setting. Miss Tolerance disliked waiting; she ventured from the withdrawing room to the book room to find something to read. An hour spent in the company of
A Letter to the Women of England, on the Injustices of Mental Subjugation,
convinced her (had she required convincing) that the life and concerns of a bluestocking would not have suited her. The hour was drawing on for ten o’clock and she was tired. She left the club, hired a chair, and was returned to Manchester Square.

Miss Tolerance did not intend to enter her aunt’s establishment that evening. When possible she avoided those hours when trade was most brisk, as she had on more than one occasion been mistaken for one of her aunt’s employees. She directed the chair to leave her in Spanish Place, went in through the gate there, and made for her cottage. There she found a note from her aunt requesting her to call. She was reluctant—the hour, the rigors of the day, and her lack of success had left her tired and irritable—but affection and duty won out. Miss Tolerance took off her bonnet and crossed the garden to Mrs. Brereton’s house.

She found her aunt at her desk, two branches of candles melting down as she pored over the pages of a ledger. Mrs. Brereton must have sensed a presence behind her; her back stiffened and she slammed the ledger closed as if to prevent its secrets leaping out to take refuge with her enemies. When she saw who her visitor was Mrs. Brereton unbent a little.

“You ought not sneak about in that fashion.”

“I am sorry, Aunt Thea. Habits of stealth are a hazard of my occupation.”

Mrs. Brereton sniffed. “Where are you off to now?”

“My bed, ma’am. I am just returned home, but you left word you wished to see me.”

“I wanted you to sup with me, but I see you have been jaunting bout town with your tame magistrate again.”

Miss Tolerance blinked. “I rarely jaunt, Aunt. And I wish you would not call Sir Walter such a name. He is neither tame nor mine, and would dislike it very much.”

“Were you not out with him last night?”

“We went to the theatre, yes. I have also gone to the theatre with you, and with Marianne. Do you have a sudden objection to Covent Garden, ma’am?”

Mrs. Brereton pursed her lips. “It seems to me that you are hardly at home.”

“Another hazard of my occupation, aunt, but not Sir Walter’s fault.”

“You were not with him tonight?”

“No, ma’am, I was not. I was at Tarsio’s, waiting for an informant who never arrived. I should have been far better entertained had I been supping with you. As to Sir Walter, do you so dislike my friendship with him?”

“You might be making money from it,” Mrs. Brereton suggested.

“Not in the way you mean, ma’am. Sir Walter and I are colleagues. We discuss our work and politics, just as you and I do.”

Mrs. Brereton opened her ledger and stared fixedly at it. “Don’t be stupid, Sarah. There is no such thing as friendship between men and women. You may not mean to attach Sir Walter, but I do not doubt that he means to attach you. Now, if all you mean to do is talk nonsense you might as well leave me to my accounts.”

Miss Tolerance did not like to leave on such a note. Since her illness a sixmonth before, Mrs. Brereton had been more volatile of temper and more likely to take offense where none was meant. She kept her temper with her clients; Miss Tolerance heard enough from Mrs. Brereton’s lieutenant, Marianne Touchwell, to know that she was equally evenhanded in dealing with the staff. Her odd moods were reserved for Frost, her dresser, for Marianne, and for Miss Tolerance, the three persons in the household to whom her ties were closest. That this was a mark of trust made it no less disturbing.