The Sleeping Partner (2 page)

Blaine shook his head. “He appears to wish for death, this fellow. Do what you must, Miss T.” He sat down on a bench and wiped his face again.

Wigg hefted the sword in his hand and charged at Miss Tolerance. He had, perhaps, hoped to frighten her. He misjudged his opponent; she stepped away from his charge, spun and brought the flat of her sword up against his backside with a sold
thwack.
Wigg stumbled forward, caught himself on the wall, and turned back to her.

“I’ll have that damned thing off you!” he roared. This time he advanced upon her deliberately, swinging his sword from side to side, his other hand outstretched.

“If you grasp my blade, sir, please be careful. I keep it very sharp.”

Wigg was not cautioned. He continued forward until Miss Tolerance cut in
sixte
to stop his blade moving, stepped in and delivered a sharp blow to his sword hand which knocked the blade to the floor.

Wigg jumped backward, looking wildly from side to side, apparently for another case of swords, but Miss Tolerance stood between him and any other weapons. Behind him was only the door to the
salle
. This seemed to enrage Mr. Wigg enough to defeat all common sense; he began to advance, swordless, upon his opponent. Miss Tolerance, who had no real desire to skewer the man, stood her ground until he was a little less than five feet away, then brought her point up to his throat. In so doing, she slit the flying tail of his neckerchief.

“Please stop.” Her tone was mild.

Wigg stood, looking cross-eyed at her swordpoint, then followed the blade back to Miss Tolerance. She stood, strong-armed but relaxed, looking at him with an expression of polite interest.

“Hell,” he said. He turned his head a little to look to Mr. Blaine. “‘ide behind the whore’s skirts, do you?”

Miss Tolerance pushed her point very gently forward. “I cannot tell you how much I dislike being called whore, Mr. Wigg.”

“Beg your pardon,” Wigg muttered, eying her point again.

“Spoken like a gentleman. Now, you are done with your business here. You have lodged your complaint with Mr. Blaine, he has given you his answer, and I think you ought to go off and break your fast somewhere. Everything will look better after you have eaten, I’m sure. Perhaps you will drink my health?” She paused to put a hand in her breeches’ pocket and drew out a coin. “Coffee, I would suggest. In the future you will know to avoid dice games.”

Wigg stepped forward to accept the copper and was briefly brought up short by the point of Miss Tolerance’s blade. She withdrew the point and dropped the coin into his hand.

“The door is there, sir.” She nodded her head in that direction. Wigg backed toward the door, looking malignly first at Blaine and then at Miss Tolerance. When he reached the door he put Miss Tolerance’s coin into his own pocket. Then, looking very sour, he turned and thundered down the stairs.

“Well.” Mr. Blaine exhaled. “That was exciting, sure.”

“I generally prefer my excitement after breakfast,” Miss Tolerance said. “Do you often have men coming to accuse you of cheating?”

Blaine grinned. “‘Tis the first time,” he allowed. “I’d have thought him too far gone in the drink to have noticed anything. I’ll have to be rid of them tats, indeed.”

Miss Tolerance could not decide whether to chide or laugh. “Mr. Blaine, I am very disappointed in you. A man of your years, and a grandfather.”

“Miss T., I shall try to do better.”

“Will you throw away your crooked dice, sir, or only endeavor not to be caught out again?”

Blaine chuckled. “You’re a caution, Miss T., you are that.”

Miss Tolerance agreed that perhaps she was. She was not likely to reform a man old enough to be her grandfather. “Well, sir, if you have had sufficient rest, are you ready to resume?”

Another half an hour with Mr. Blaine and Miss Tolerance departed, streaming with sweat and pleasantly tired. She made her way through the crowds in Salisbury Square and returned to Manchester Square, where she lodged in a cottage behind her aunt’s establishment. Mrs. Dorothea Brereton was the proprietor of one of the most refined and celebrated brothels in the city, and mornings were a busy time there, with patrons to be sent upon their way, staff to be fed, and mountains of linens to be gathered for the laundress. Not wishing to add to the servants’ burden, Miss Tolerance sent a request for hot water for bathing “when quite convenient.” Miss Tolerance broke her fast with bread and cheese and a mug of coffee, bathed, and dressed again, this time in clothing appropriate to her sex. A little past eleven she left her cottage, wearing a steel-blue walking dress and a neat straw bonnet, and headed toward Henry Street and the handsome Palladian structure which housed Tarsio’s Club.

Tarsio’s was remarkable in that it was the only establishment of its sort whose membership included both men and women. Nor did the membership committee make respectability its first concern; so long as a member was able to pay the commons fees and charges and conform to the establishment’s rules, anyone—courtesan, MP, actress, lawyer, even a poet—might belong. For Miss Tolerance, who preferred to keep business away from her cottage and from her aunt’s establishment, membership in Tarsio’s provided a neutral place to meet with clients. As she had lately been unemployed, she made it a point to spend a part of her day there, available for consultation.

She moved through the busy streets, dodging between a flower girl and a dairyman who, backs to each other, were crying their wares as they approached collision. The chill of the morning had warmed away with the increasing sunshine. Mingled with the smells of ordure, human sweat, and fish from the barrow just now being pushed past, Miss Tolerance detected a green scent. Spring was coming to London. She stepped across a gutterful of muck and turned onto Henry Street.

At Tarsio’s she was greeted by the hall-porter, Corton, a large, older man whose respectable demeanor put the lie to Tarsio’s raffish reputation.

“I hope I see you well today, miss.”

“You do, Corton. Very well, as I hope you are. Any messages?”

Corton shook his head with genuine regret. Miss Tolerance, when in funds, tipped well. “Nothing yet today, Miss. Was you expecting something?”

Miss Tolerance shook her head. “Expecting? No. Hoping, perhaps.”

“Hope’s the great thing, miss. Will you require anything today?”

Miss Tolerance bespoke a pot of coffee and made her way upstairs to the first floor and the Ladies’ Salon. In one corner of this spacious chamber she observed a game of whist played with quiet ferocity by a quartet of lady-essayists. In another, two very expensive females sat with their heads close together, likely exchanging trade secrets. Miss Tolerance took a chair by a window, turned it to face the door, and opened the
Times
before her.

She finished her coffee and read both the
Times
and the
Post
over the next two hours. There was nothing left to read within reach, and Miss Tolerance was thinking that if she must rise to seek some other reading material she might as well return home, when Cordon appeared beside her and murmured that a lady was inquiring for her.

“What sort of lady?” She would see her visitor regardless, but often found the porter’s impressions useful.

“A
real
lady, miss. A bit anxious about the eyes.”

A real lady in a state of anxiety bode well for business and thus for Miss Tolerance’s pocket-book. She directed Corton to bring the visitor up.

She was a pretty woman, several years younger than Miss Tolerance and several inches shorter, dressed with elegance in a walking suit of snuff-colored twill. The curls visible under her deep-poked bonnet were a soft golden-brown, and her eyes were large, brown and, as Corton had said, anxious. Miss Tolerance had the impression of a gentlewoman with money, taste, and a problem.

She rose and curtsied. Her visitor curtsied likewise, and looked around the room.

“This is very pleasant,” she said, as though she had not expected to find it so.

“It is, ma’am. Now, no one here pays the least attention to anyone else, but if you would prefer to take your business to a more private place—”

“Is that what is done?” The woman looked around again. The nearest persons were seated a dozen paces away and appeared absorbed in their own conversation. “You will know best, of course, but if you are comfortable I beg we will not move for my sake.”

Miss Tolerance rarely encountered such a degree of consideration from prospective clients; the woman was very anxious indeed.

“Let us sit here, then. May I offer you some wine? Tea, then?” Miss Tolerance took her chair again and gestured to her visitor to sit. She took a moment to order tea, then turned back to her visitor.

“Now, how am I to help you, ma’am? Perhaps we may begin with what you would like me to call you.” Miss Tolerance placed a mental wager that the lady would not give her real name.

“I am Mrs. Brown.” The name did not roll from her tongue.

A point to me,
Miss Tolerance thought. “How may I help you, Mrs. Brown?”

“I was told by—by a mutual acquaintance—that you are able to find things. People.”

Miss Tolerance nodded. “Is this acquaintance a former client of mine, ma’am?” Mrs. Brown nodded. “I hope you will convey to her—or him—my gratitude for this confidence. And you have lost…someone?”

Mrs. Brown nodded. A fuller reply was delayed by the arrival of the tea tray and the pleasant ritual by which the drink was dispensed. When Miss Tolerance had poured her own tea and moved the plate of biscuits closer to her guest, Mrs. Brown began again.

“Can you find a lost girl?”

Miss Tolerance had been expecting to hear of a husband lost to the fleshpots or a brother on the run from the bailiffs. Little girls of good family were not allowed to stray.

“How old is the child? Where was she lost?”

Mrs. Brown blushed. “I misspoke. She is not a child but a young lady. She is sixteen.”

Miss Tolerance was briefly relieved. A child lost for more than a few hours suggested kidnapping, ransom, death. A missing young lady of sixteen was a wholly different matter, and generally a problem more sordid than sinister.

“She has eloped?” Miss Tolerance was gentle.

Mrs. Brown nodded.

“Can you tell me the circumstances? Are you acquainted with the man?”

“I don’t believe so.” The woman looked down at her hands. “I have not been so much in my sister’s confidence since I married. But I should never have thought—”

No one does.
“Of course not. Perhaps you will tell me how you learned of the elopement?”

“She left a note. It was—” Mrs. Brown flushed. “She had quarreled with our father that morning, and the note was very…severe.”

“May I see it?”

“The note? Oh.” The woman looked distressed. “Oh, dear. I do not
have
it.”

Miss Tolerance suppressed a sigh. “Do you recall what the note said, Mrs. Brown?”

“Oh, yes.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “It said that she could not longer remain in the house under my father’s
harsh rule—
that was the phrase she used—and that she knew her own best happiness would be secured with someone who loves her. She apologized to my brothers and to me for any pain her elopement would cause. I believe that was the whole of it.”

“Your memory is excellent. Can you tell me if her writing appeared hurried or forced?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t
see
the note.” Mrs.Brown’s brows drew together. “My father was in a great rage; he read the letter aloud to us, then crumpled it up, shoved it into his pocket, and locked himself in the office.”

Father is given to melodrama.
Miss Tolerance felt a stir of anger on behalf of Mrs. Brown’s vanished sister. “Perhaps, ma’am, if you can tell me the exact sequence of events which led to that moment? Start with the beginning of the day.”

“Sir—my husband and I are visiting in my father’s house. He—my husband—went out very early. I did not leave my room until about ten that morning; my sister had taken her breakfast downstairs with my father, as was usual. By the time I came downstairs Father was closeted in his office. I had to go to my hat maker’s, and called to Evie—my sister’s name is Evadne—to see if she wished to come with me; she came out from the schoolroom to say no, and that is the last I saw of her. I went out, and when I came back Evie was gone.”

“You knew that at once?”

“At once? No.” Mrs. Brown tilted her head. “I had a little headache and went upstairs to rest. Later I went up to the schoolroom to show Evie the hat I had bought. She was not there, but I was not much concerned; her governess and I thought she must be in the garden, or in the kitchen teasing ginger knots from the cook.”

“I take it she was in neither place?” Miss Tolerance tried to imagine a girl who begged sweets in the kitchen one moment and eloped in the next.

“No, but we didn’t learn that until—but I am ahead of my story. I had some letters to write, and went down to the little parlor I use when I visit. I had been there perhaps a half hour when my father came from his office in a great state, calling us to him and waving the letter.”

“Your father read the letter to you,” Miss Tolerance suggested.

Mrs. Brown nodded. “When we had gathered to hear him, yes.”

“The letter said nothing about marriage?”

“Not specifically, but it is my hope—” Mrs. Brown looked very troubled. “Miss Tolerance, I am sure you hear such stories every day, and I know I have said I have not been much in my sister’s confidence in the five years since I married. But Evie is
not
a light-minded girl, and I should have said that her principles were strong.”

“Even the strongest-minded girl may find the combination of fancied love and an argument with a parent powerful enough to outweigh her principles—for a time.” Miss Tolerance was brisk. “A few questions, if you please. You say your father called out. To whom?”

“To me, of course. And my older brother, and Miss—the governess. Father waited until we had gathered around him in the hall outside his office and then he read the letter.”