Seven Dials (28 page)

She felt like a fraud, imagining the desperate women, wives, mothers or sisters who had come to him to find a man they had loved, lost to experiences he could not share with them, or whose burden he could not carry without the oblivion of drink, or opium.

She had to be honest with him. “It is not a relative of mine, it is the brother of a young woman I know. He has disappeared, and she is too distressed to look for him herself, nor has she the time. She could lose her position and not easily find another.”

His expression of concern did not alter. “Who is he?”

Before she could reply the outer door swung wide open, crashing against the wall and bouncing back to catch the person coming in. It hit him so hard he lost his precarious balance and crumpled to the floor, where he remained in a heap, like a bundle of rags.

Sandeman glanced at Charlotte too briefly to speak, then stood up and went over to the door. He bent down and put his hands under the man, and with considerable effort, lifted him to his feet. The man was very obviously drunk. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, but his face sagged, his eyes were unfocused and he had several days’ stubble on his cheeks. His hair was matted and the dirt on him could be smelled even from where Charlotte sat.

Sandeman looked at him with exasperation. “Come on in, Herbert. Come and sit down. You’re sodden wet, man!”

“I fell,” Herbert mumbled, dragging his feet as he shambled half beside, half behind Sandeman.

“In the gutter, by the look of you,” Sandeman said wryly.

And the smell, Charlotte thought. She longed to move farther away, but the dignity with which Sandeman spoke to the man made her feel ashamed to.

Herbert made no reply, but allowed himself to be guided over to the bench by the low fire, and sank down onto it as if he were exhausted. None of those already there took the slightest notice of him.

Sandeman went to a cupboard against the far wall. He took a key from the ring on his belt and opened the door. He searched for a few minutes, then took out a large gray blanket, coarse and rough, but no doubt warm.

Charlotte watched him with curiosity. It was hardly enough for a bed, nor was the man sick, in the sense that rest would help him.

Sandeman closed and locked the cupboard, and went back to Herbert, carrying the blanket.

“Take off your wet clothes,” he instructed. “Wrap this around you and get warm.”

Herbert looked across at Charlotte.

“She’ll turn her back,” Sandeman promised. He said it loudly enough for her to hear and obey, swiveling the chair around so she was facing the opposite way. After that she did not see him stand up, but she heard the rustling of fabric and the slight thud as the wet cloth struck the floor.

“I’ll get you some hot soup and bread,” Sandeman went on. “It’ll settle your stomach.” He did not bother to tell the man to stop drinking the alcohol that was poisoning him. Presumably that had already all been said, and to no purpose. “I’ll wash your clothes. You’ll have to wait here until they’re dry.” Charlotte heard his feet coming towards her until he stood at her elbow.

“You can turn around now,” he said quietly. “I’m afraid I have things to do, but I can talk to you as I work.”

“Perhaps I can fetch him the bread and the soup?” she offered. The stench of the clothes was turning her stomach, but she tried not to allow it to show in her face.

“Thank you,” he accepted. “We have a scullery through there.” He pointed to a door to the left of the fireplace. “We can talk while I wash these. It will be private.” He picked up the clothes again and led her into a small stone room where a huge stove kept water simmering in two kettles, a cauldron of soup near the boil, and several old pans of hot water, presumably ready to wash clothes as necessary. A tin bath on a low table served as a sink, and there were buckets of cold water from the nearest pump, perhaps one or two streets away.

She found the bread and a knife and carefully sliced off two fairly thick pieces. It was not difficult because the bread was stale. She looked around for anything to spread on it, but there was no butter. Perhaps with soup it would not matter. Anything would be good that would absorb some of the alcohol. She lifted the lid from the cauldron on the stove and saw pea soup almost as thick as porridge, bubbles breaking every now and then on the surface, like hot mud. There were bowls on a bench, and she reached for one, took the ladle and filled it.

She carried the bread on a plate in one hand, the bowl and a spoon in the other, protected by a cloth, and went back into the hall and over to Herbert. She stopped in front of him and he looked up at her. She could see in his face the instinct to rise to his feet, old discipline dying hard. He had once been a soldier, before whatever kind of pain or despair it was had destroyed him. But he was also acutely conscious of the fact that he was wearing only a blanket, and he was not sure enough of his grasp on it to maintain his decency. The nakedness of his situation was bad enough, without exposing his body as well.

“Please stay seated,” she said quickly, as if he had already half risen. “You must hold the soup carefully. It is very hot. You will need both hands. Please take care not to burn yourself.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he muttered, relaxing again and taking the bowl from her gingerly. He rested it on the blanket across his knee straightaway. It was too hot to hold for long, and he was aware that his fingers were clumsy.

She smiled at him, although he did not see it, then realizing that she might be embarrassing him, she turned and went back into the scullery again.

Sandeman was bending over the tin bath, rubbing at the clothes. He was using rough soap made of potash, carbolic, and lye. It was strong and would do his skin no good, but it would get rid of the worst of the dirt, and no doubt the lice, and the odor and infection that would lie with them.

“Mr. Sandeman,” she said urgently, “I really do have to speak to you. This young man who has disappeared may be in some danger, and we have been told that he came looking for you. If he found you, he might have said something which could tell me where he went, and why.”

He looked sideways at her, resting his thin arms on the edge of the bath and leaning his weight on them. It was a backbreaking job. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Martin Garvie…”

The words were barely out of her mouth when she saw him stiffen and the color drain from his face, and then flow back in again as if the blood had rushed up in a tide. Her own heart constricted with fear. Her lips were so stiff it was difficult to form the words. “What’s happened to him?” she said huskily.

“I don’t know.” He straightened up very slowly. He turned to face her, ignoring the wet clothes and letting them sink back into the water. “I’m sorry, I cannot tell you anything that will help you. I really cannot.” He was breathing heavily, as if his chest were compressed, and yet at the same time starved for air.

“He may be in danger, Mr. Sandeman,” she said quickly. “He is missing! No one has seen or heard from him for three weeks. His sister is frantic with worry. Even his master, Mr. Stephen Garrick, does not appear to have gone where he is said to have. There is no trace of him on train or ship. We need anything we can find to help us learn what has happened.”

It was painfully clear that Sandeman was laboring under some intense emotion, so profound he could not control the shivering of his body or the raggedness of his breathing, but when he managed to find his voice, there was no indecision in him, no possibility of change.

“I cannot help you,” he said again. “What is told me as a confession of the soul is sacred.”

“But if a man’s life is at stake…” she argued, knowing even as she did so that she was doomed to failure. She could see it in his eyes, the pallor of his face, the muscles locked tight in his jaw and neck.

“I can only trust God,” he replied so softly she barely heard him. “It rests in His hands. I cannot tell you what Martin Garvie told me. If I could, I would tell you all of it. And I am still not sure it would help you find him.”

“Is… is he alive?”

“I don’t know.”

She drew her breath in to try one more time, and then let it out in a sigh. She recognized the finality in his eyes, and looked away. She could not think what else to say. The emotion was too high for anything banal, and yet what else was there?

“Mrs…” he started, leaving it hanging because he did not know her name.

“Pitt,” she answered. “Charlotte Pitt.”

“Mrs. Pitt, it concerns too many other people. If it were my secret alone, and speaking would do any good… but it won’t. It’s an old story, long past helping now.”

“To do with Martin Garvie?” She was puzzled. “He told you something…”

“I can’t help you, Mrs. Pitt. I’ll walk with you back as far as Dudley Street, in case you get lost.” His voice was urgent, his dark eyes full of trouble. “Please go home. You don’t belong here. You may get hurt, and you will do no good. Believe me. I live here, and I know this place as well as any outsider can do, but I seldom go out after dark. Come…” He dried his hands on a piece of torn cloth and put his jacket on again. “Do you know your way from Dudley Street?”

“Yes… thank you.” She could only accept. There was nothing else to do with dignity, or even without it. And, she admitted, she cared what he thought of her.

WITH PITT not at home, Charlotte had no wish to light the parlor fire and sit there alone after Daniel and Jemima had gone to bed. Instead she sat in the warm, bright kitchen and told Gracie what she had discovered from Sandeman, but neither of them could think of anything further to do, unless they could find more information. In spite of the cats more or less asleep in the clothes basket beside the stove, and the soft patter of rain on the window, they shared a quiet, bitter feeling of defeat.

The evening after was no better, but at least there were domestic chores to be done, and that was more satisfying than idleness. Gracie was going through cupboards, tidying them, and Charlotte was mending pillowcases when a little after nine o’clock the doorbell rang.

Gracie was standing on a stool with her arms full of washing, so Charlotte went to answer it herself.

On the step stood a slender man, very smartly dressed in tailoring that would have astounded Pitt. He had a lean, clever face, deeply lined, and with eyes so dark they looked black in the light of the street lamp. His shock of dark hair was liberally sprinkled with gray.

“Mrs. Pitt.” He said it more as an introduction than a question.

“Yes,” she acknowledged cautiously. She was certainly not going to allow a stranger into the house. Nor, in fact, would it be a good idea to tell him that Pitt was away. “What may I do for you?” she added.

He smiled slightly. It was self-deprecating, and yet he was obviously full of confidence. It was a mannerism of possibly unconscious charm.

“How do you do. My name is Victor Narraway. In your husband’s absence in Alexandria, where I regret I was obliged to send him, I wished to call upon you and ascertain that you are safe and well… and that you remain so.”

“Have you some doubt, Mr. Narraway?” She was startled at his identity, and there was a flutter of fear in her that he knew something of Pitt which she did not. And for him to have come, it had to be something ugly. She had heard nothing from Pitt yet, but it was far too early. The post would take days. She tried to steady herself. “Why have you called, Mr. Narraway? Please be candid.”

“Exactly as I said, Mrs. Pitt,” he replied. “May I come in?”

She stood back in tacit invitation and he stepped up and past her, glancing momentarily at the delicate plasterwork on the ceiling of the hall. Then as she closed the door, he went where she indicated into the parlor.

She followed him and turned up the lamps. She hoped he was not going to be there long enough for it to matter that she had not lit the fire. She faced him almost challengingly, her heart pounding. “Have you heard something about Thomas?”

“No, Mrs. Pitt,” he said immediately. “I apologize if I gave you that impression. As far as I know, he is safe and in good health. Were he not, I would have heard to the contrary. It is your safety I am concerned about.”

He was very polite but she detected a shadow of condescension in his tone. Was it because Narraway was a gentleman, and Pitt was a gamekeeper’s son, in spite of his perfect diction? There was always something in the manner, the bearing, which marked the confidence that was not gained but inborn.

Charlotte was not aristocracy, as Vespasia was, but she was very definitely of good family. She looked at him with a cool arrogance which Vespasia might not have disowned. Her old dress with its darned cuffs was irrelevant.

“Indeed? That is very gracious of you, Mr. Narraway, but quite unnecessary. Thomas left everything in order before he went, and all arrangements are working as they should.” She was referring to the financial ones regarding his pay, but it would be crude to say so.

Narraway smiled very slightly, merely a softening of the lips. “I had not imagined otherwise,” he assured her. “But then perhaps you did not tell him of your intention to investigate the apparent disappearance of one of Ferdinand Garrick’s servants.”

She was caught completely off guard. She scrambled for an answer that would keep him at a distance and close him out of intruding into her thoughts.

“Apparent?” she asked, her eyes very wide. “That sounds as if you know more of it than I. So you have been investigating it also? I am very pleased. Indeed, I am delighted. The case requires more resources than I can bring to it.”

Now it was his turn to look startled, but he masked it so quickly she almost failed to see it.

“I don’t think you understand the danger you may be in if you proceed any further,” he said carefully, his dark eyes fixed on hers, as if to make certain she grasped his seriousness.

Without taking a second to think, she smiled at him dazzlingly. “Then you had better enlighten me, Mr. Narraway. What danger is it? Who is likely to hurt me, and how? Obviously you know, or you would not have taken time from your own case to come to tell me… at this hour.”