A Fatal Freedom (34 page)

It was well after midnight when Ursula turned the final page of the novel but her mind was too active for her to fall asleep at once. She tossed and turned, finally drifting off just before dawn and woke late on Saturday morning. It mattered little as she did not need to be at either Mrs Bruton’s or the
Maison Rose
.

Conscious she had already wasted time that could have been spent exploring, or having a walk in one of London’s many parks, Ursula had a hasty breakfast and hurried out of the front door. A nasty wind that hit her as she turned into the main road carried a reminder that autumn was here and winter approached.

The faint idea of a contemplative walk in Green Park vanished. Ursula turned her attention towards checking the destination of omnibuses. A friendly conductor told her which number she needed and some little time later she was at the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street.

A steady stream of visitors was heading for the menagerie. Once again the carved screen fascinated Ursula as she passed it on her way to the encampment beyond.

The circus area was a scene of happy activity with large pails of water and feedstuff being carried to the menagerie, jugglers working at spinning plates on sticks, acrobats practising handstands and using a spring board to jump on to one another’s shoulders in complicated tiers of performers. Ursula, forgetting for a moment why she was there, stood watching all the activity.

‘Ah, lovely lady from other night!’ Ma suddenly appeared, her colourful robe replaced by a plain canvas skirt and loose tunic, her turban exchanged for a cotton scarf printed in a colourful pattern, wiry curls of dark hair escaping from it.

‘Good morning! I thought I’d come and see how Millie had settled in,’ Ursula said. ‘I hope I am not intruding.’

Ma beamed at her. ‘Millie fine. She sewing in my caravan. Go, talk!’

Ursula turned towards the splendid travelling van that was Ma and Pa’s home and saw that Millie was in fact sitting on the top step, bent over a lapful of red material, wielding a needle and thread. She caught sight of Ursula and waved.

What a change had occurred! The distraught and depressed girl in her diaphanous lingerie had vanished. From somewhere Millie had acquired a neat cotton skirt and bodice and a large knitted shawl. The greatest change, though, was her wide and confident smile.

‘I’m Ursula Grandison, we met the other night,’ said Ursula, uncertain whether the girl would remember her.

‘Oh, miss, it was the best thing ever, Mr Jackman and you bringing me here!’

‘You like it, then?’

‘I’m sharing with one of the circus riders, Ilaria, that’s her over there,’ she pointed at a girl riding bareback, her legs either side of a sturdy piebald pony. Then, demonstrating complete control, she moved from a sitting to a standing position, her slippered feet seemingly secure on the broad back, her arms held gracefully out.

‘You watch,’ said Millie.

To Ursula’s astonishment, without fuss, the girl performed a somersault, making a perfect landing without the horse having changed its pace. A moment later she slid down again to a sitting position and patted the piebald’s neck in thanks.

‘She’s being doing that over and over,’ said Millie. ‘Amazing, i’n’t it?’

Ursula agreed.

‘She doesn’t seem to mind me sharing. Her English i’n’t good but she can understand me and I can work out what she’s saying. This is one of her costumes.’ She shook out the red velvet and held it up. It didn’t look as though it would cover much of the girl’s body.

‘It has a tear and she needs a new fringe.’ Millie picked up a length of cream trimming, and showed where it would go. She grinned, ‘It’s not going to cover up much of her legs, is it? And to think I was afraid of showing too much in that negligée! D’you want to come up? Ma says I can make a cup of tea when I like.’

Inside the caravan, Millie put the kettle on the stove, took down a teapot and a tin painted with a country scene. ‘Isn’t this a wonderful place to live?’ she said, dipping a spoon into the tea caddy.

Ursula looked at her in amazement. The other night this girl had been desperate. She had been rescued from a scandalous situation to find herself without a position, clothes, or shelter. And now she seemed to have all three.

‘You look quite at home.’

The kettle came to the boil and Millie made the tea. Bone china mugs were produced. ‘Do you take milk?’ she asked.

The girl showed all the aplomb of a society hostess. Ursula sat on one of the cushioned mahogany cupboards that formed part of the caravan’s furnishings, took her tea, and accepted a dash of milk. What an extraordinary number of twists of fortune this girl had lived through during the last few weeks. Her mistress disappearing, her master making her act as his hostess in the house in which she had been a lady’s maid, discovering that master dead, then accepting an invitation to be set up as a ‘lady of the night’, only to find that she was expected to perform a role little different from that of a common prostitute. Perhaps, after all that had passed, finding herself set down in a circus and menagerie, and sharing a caravan with a bareback rider was not so strange after all.

‘I’m glad you’ve found some suitable clothes,’ Ursula said, thinking that they fitted the girl very well. Maybe she had used her sewing skills to alter them.

‘Ma produced a skirt and blouse from one of the other girls and then I went to Montagu Place and got my own ones.’ Millie giggled as she leant against the doorframe with her own mug of tea. ‘That old witch, Mrs Firestone, had the cheek to tell me I needn’t think of having my place back. I told her it was the last thing I’d want.’

‘You don’t wish to see if you could return to your position when Mrs Peters comes out … that is to say, when she is able to return home?’

Millie gave a toss of her neatly coiffed head. ‘She won’t be coming back. Not after she murdered the master.’

‘You really think she killed him?’

‘’Course she did. Wanted to have her child and her fancy man, didn’t she? Gave the old man a packet of lies of how she’d never been unfaithful to him and he was the father – and the silly old fool swallowed it all.’ She managed to talk and drink her tea at the same time. ‘I told him when she disappeared how it was with her. All sly and treacherous. Couldn’t be content with having a comfortable home with a husband what provided her with everything a woman could want.’

Ursula remembered the tragic figure she’d seen in prison, her dignity and her staunch reliance that justice would see that she was released.

‘That Inspector Drummond, he saw through her at once,’ Millie added. ‘Reckon he was pretty impressed with what I had to tell him about her goings-on.’ She drank the last of her tea, rose, refreshed the teapot and offered Ursula a refill.

Ursula handed over her mug, fascinated by Millie’s tale.

‘I told Mrs Firestone I was well suited and she’d better be looking for a new position herself. Then I packed up my old clothes and left. Oh, yes, and I told Emily she’d better find another position and all.’

Ursula watched the way Millie wielded the strainer as she poured tea into the mug and gracefully passed it back to her and had a sudden vision of her dressed in Alice’s gowns dispensing alcohol and refreshments to Joshua Peters’ guests.

‘Do you expect to remain here?’

Another little toss of the head. ‘Who’s to say? Ma and Pa have told me I can stay as long as I want. They say they’ve needed someone to deal with the costume side of things for some time.’

‘But what about when winter comes? Don’t they stop touring then?’ Ursula remembered Ma mentioning the working out of new routines in winter quarters.

Millie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Could be they need a whole set of different outfits and what better time to make them? But maybe I’ll set myself up as a dressmaker, a costumier,’ she brought the word out with pride. ‘Reckon there’s any amount of things I could do. Learned a lot over the last few months I have. I thought becoming a lady’s maid was the best thing ever; now I reckon there’s other things. Things that would mean I could do more what I want rather than be at the beck and call of someone else. Know what I mean?’

Oh, yes, she knew exactly what Millie meant. If the girl hadn’t been so accusing of Alice, Ursula could admire the resourcefulness she seemed to have discovered.

‘Am I intruding?’ said a voice and there was Thomas Jackman coming up the steps leading into the caravan.

‘Well, look who’s here!’ said Millie cheekily. ‘Been wondering when you’d turn up.’

‘There was other business that called for my attention.’ Thomas removed his bowler hat and entered. There was something about his wiry body and clean-shaven appearance that made the well-ordered living space seem impossibly crowded, yet they’d all managed well enough the other night, sitting and eating at the moveable table while Ma bustled about.

‘Cup o’ tea?’ Millie continued to fulfil her role as hostess.

‘Millie, you’re a lifesaver. Nice and strong and plenty of milk.’ Thomas placed his hat on a convenient hook and neatly tucked himself down on the seat. ‘Good to see you, Miss Grandison.’ He gave her a nod of acknowledgement.

‘Ursula, please,’ she murmured, admiring his neat appearance and the aplomb with which he had taken control of the situation.

‘So, what you been up to, then?’ Millie handed over his tea and sat beside him, closer than was strictly necessary. Thomas rearranged the set of his tweed jacket; manufacturing a little distance between their thighs.

‘This and that, you know,’ he said, raising his mug in a salute. ‘Now, tell me, are you happy here?’

Millie gave him a brilliant smile. ‘Oh, yes, Joe … whoops, must learn to call you Tom, mustn’t I?’

There was a little pause.

‘And I got lots of work,’ Millie indicated the bundle of red velvet. ‘Ma says she’s ever so lucky to have me.’

‘Excellent,’ he murmured and surveyed her thoughtfully. ‘Changed your manner of dressing, I see.’

She gave him a provocative look. ‘Not got the goods on display, you mean? Doesn’t mean they aren’t a draw anyway.’

Almost as if prompted, a lithe figure ran up the steps. Short dark hair was brushed back from a mobile face with a snub nose and sparkling eyes. Dressed in rough trousers and tunic, he carried what looked like a clown’s outfit over his arm. ‘Miss Millie, Ma says you repair tear, no?’ His accent sounded Eastern European, his smile was pure charm.

‘Of course, Rinaldo.’ She held out a hand for the costume, then sorted out the damage: a long rent down the baggy trousers of the all-in-one garment. ‘Rough in the ring was it last night?’ she asked sympathetically.

‘That Marko! ’E think clever make me fall – not as arranged, so I not expect.’

‘You’ll have to sort him out. Cup of tea?’

Rinaldo looked as though he would like to say ‘yes’ but he glanced at Ursula and Thomas. ‘No, my turn fix more feed for animals. Later I come for costume and then have tea, yes?’

‘Any time,’ Millie smiled warmly at him and carefully folded up the costume. ‘I’ll have this mended in an hour or so.’

Rinaldo blew her a kiss and neatly tripped down the steps.

‘See what you mean,’ said Thomas. ‘Glad you’ve come to a safe landing here. But where did you get the clothes?’

‘Millie went back to Montagu Place and reclaimed her stuff,’ said Ursula. ‘I think it says a lot for the Peters household that it was there waiting for her. They might well have given the clothes to the poor box, if that’s what it’s called over here.’

‘They weren’t theirs to give, they was mine! I’d have had something to say if that had happened, I can tell you.’

‘Albert there?’

‘Oh, Albert! He’s taken himself off. Moment Joshua … that is, the master, died, he knew there wasn’t anything there for him. He’d tried to get it off with me when I arrived.’ She gave Thomas a meaning look. ‘Told him where he could keep his hands and his suggestions. Said I wasn’t that sort of girl. And we all knew he was that close to the master.’ She held up two crossed fingers. ‘Always running to him with tales against the rest of us. Wanted to be top dog, he did.’

‘So after Mr Peters died, he, as you might say, abandoned ship?’

‘Well, he went. That’s all I know.’ Millie equipped herself with needle and thread and picked up the clown’s costume with an air of closing the conversation.

‘Where could he have gone to? That’s what I’d like to know.’

‘And why, may I ask?’

‘Matter of this investigation into your master’s murder.’

‘Oh, that!’ Millie looked sulky. ‘Isn’t that all wrapped up? What with Mrs Peters arrested and all?’

‘All wrapped up? That what you think, is it?’ Thomas cocked his head on one side and held her gaze till she bit her lip, bent her head and started mending the rent.

‘Well, Millie, there are threads to be followed, ends to be tied. And that’s why I’d like a little chat with Albert.’ He paused for a moment, then continued in a meaningful voice, ‘He’s got some questions to answer.’

Milllie brightened. ‘Oh, has he!’ She rested her needle and thought for a long moment.

Thomas said nothing and Ursula sat quietly and finished her tea. She didn’t know where this conversation was going but she was very grateful the investigator had turned up. He was the perfect person to discuss her problem with.

‘Albert did once say,’ Millie said slowly, ‘as ’ow he was looking forward to living as a gent. Mind you, that was when he was trying it on with me; thought he had to make an impression and said as ‘ow he wasn’t far off acquiring such residential accommodation as would suit someone moving up in the world. And he knew where that was. Well, Mr Peters wasn’t going to stand for that and I told him so.’

‘And he said?’ Thomas asked negligently.

‘Only that he and Mr Peters could continue in partnership with him living in better style and someone else running the errands. Partnership! He was living in some sort of dream world!’

‘Sounds like it. Did he tell you where this accommodation “suitable for someone coming up in the world” was, by any chance?’

Millie gave him a sharp look. ‘Maybe; not sure I remember, though.’