Belgravia (38 page)

Ellis raised her eyebrows. “He might marry now if he’s as rich as you say.”

“He’s thought of that. He wants me to live with him, whether or not he takes a wife.”

Ellis found herself becoming rather jealous. Croft was to leave service and run a fine house in a new country. How fair was that, when Ellis still had to bow and curtsy and try to eke out a living by spying and stealing? There didn’t seem to be any justice in it. “I hope you can adjust to the different climate,” she said sourly. “I believe the extremes of heat and cold can be very trying to the spirit.”

“I think I’ll manage,” said Croft, well aware of what was going through her friend’s mind. “Of course I’ll have to decide what to do with my spare time. It’s not something I’ve ever known before.”

“What a problem to have,” said Ellis, giving a rare smile. “When do you sail?”

“Thursday. I’ll make the journey to Liverpool in the morning, which I am not looking forward to, but I’ve sent all but one bag ahead to my hotel, so that’s something. Then I’ll spend the night there and go on board the following morning.”

Ellis felt a strong desire to talk this adventure down and spoil Croft’s obvious pleasure, but she resisted it. There were more
important things at stake. “What was it you wanted to see Mrs. Trenchard about?” she said.

Croft gave a slight shrug. “It’s something or nothing.” She hesitated, unsure whether she should say anything more.

“You know you got me into trouble by mentioning that I’d written about Mr. Pope.” Ellis looked wounded rather than severe.

“No, I didn’t know that. I’m ever so sorry.”

“So I think you owe me an explanation.”

Croft nodded. She had no idea that the woman before her was anything but a slightly envious friend. “I was tidying everything up when I was packing, going through old letters and the like and throwing out what I did not want to keep forever. You know the sort of thing.”

“Of course.”

“Well, I came upon some papers of Miss Sophia’s that I wanted to pass on. I don’t know if the mistress will keep them, but I just didn’t feel I had the right to destroy them. So I thought, why not deliver the bundle in person before I go? I daresay she’ll throw them on the fire the moment I’m out of the room.”

“It seems a long way to come for that.”

“Not really. I was in Kent, so it just breaks the journey to Liverpool. Besides, I’ve not been to London in years. I’ve heard about the master’s building work and read descriptions in the papers, but I wanted to see for myself what the city’s become, before I left. I don’t know that I’ll be back this way, if you know what I mean.”

Ellis knew at once that this was her chance. “Of course I understand, and I’ll tell you what. If you go now, you’ll have plenty of time before the mistress gets home. She won’t be back for at least two hours. Let me give you a list of the streets and squares you ought to visit, make an outing of it, enjoy yourself.”

Croft nodded, but there was something nervous in the movement. “I don’t suppose you could come with me? Only it’s been a while since I was out walking in London.”

Ellis gave a light laugh. “The chance’d be a fine thing! I’ve got work up to my ears. But don’t worry. I’ll give you some money if you like, for a cab to take you around.”

Croft shook her head. “No, I’ve got money.”

“Then you mustn’t miss this chance. It won’t come again.”

“Well, that’s true. What shall I do with my bag?”

“I’ll have one of the hall boys take it upstairs to your room. You’re sharing with me tonight.” At this, Croft stood and went to reach for her cape, which was hanging in the passage outside.

It was not much more than five minutes before Ellis had taken her bag into Turton’s room and the two of them were searching the contents.

In even less time they found what they were looking for. Inside a large leather envelope there was a bundle of letters, together with other papers.

“We need to be quick,” she said, watching the butler as he scanned the papers carefully.

But Turton was thinking. “What will he give us for them?”

“We can’t steal these, or we’d be discovered as soon as the mistress gets home and asks to see them. We must make copies now, at once, before she returns.”

He did not seem quite convinced. “But how do we know he’ll pay enough?”

Ellis was becoming impatient. “Mr. Turton, I don’t know why, but you’ve fallen out with Mr. Bellasis and it is clouding your judgment. I have not. This is our chance to have something worth selling that he will want to buy. We can haggle later, but right now we must make copies so he can buy them if he wishes, which he will. Then the mistress is given the originals and nobody is any the wiser.”

“Why don’t you make the copies?”

“Because I—” Ellis was silent for a moment. She was going to say she couldn’t write, but that wasn’t true. She could. But not well enough for Mr. Bellasis’s eyes. What annoyed her was that Turton knew it.

Turton stared at her, enjoying her discomfort. “Very well. I will copy the papers as quickly as I can, and then you can take them over to Mr. Bellasis. But you are not to put them into his hand until you have decided on the price. Unless you want me to go.”

“No. If he’s angry with you, it may make him less inclined to pay.” Turton nodded. There was logic in this.

Having resolved to do it, he was quick. He sat down at his desk with a steel-nibbed pen and ink while Ellis stood guard. He barely spoke as he scratched and scribbled on the thick white paper, copying down the information. He nodded gruffly to Ellis as soon as he’d finished. “Put the real ones back and then take these to him.”

“Are they worth something?”

Turton thought for a moment. “They are either worth a great deal to Mr. Bellasis or nothing at all.”

Ellis didn’t understand him. “How’s that?” she said, but he did not elaborate. Instead he handed her the leather envelope of papers so that she could place them back in the bag and carry it upstairs to her bedroom on the women’s side of the servants’ attics.

Half an hour later, Ellis was standing in the entrance courtyard at Albany as a servant came out of the porch to tell her that Mr. Bellasis was indeed in residence and would receive her.

John’s reaction to the papers was not quite as she had expected. He read them through, in absolute silence, while she waited by the door. Then he read one of them again and his face was so still that he could have been a statue. She could not tell if he was delighted or fascinated or horrified. At last he looked up. “Where are the originals?”

“Back in the case where Miss Croft left them. Up in my room.”

“Fetch them.” His tone was as stern as a commander in chief giving the order to charge.

Ellis shook her head. “I can’t. She’ll know who took them. And then what?”

“Do you think I care? Fetch them at once. I will give you a thousand pounds to compensate you if you should lose your place.”

Ellis could not believe her ears. How much? A thousand pounds, more money than she’d ever dreamed of, for some papers that Croft had described as “something and nothing”? She stared at him.

“Have I made myself clear?” he barked, and she nodded, still rooted to the spot. “Then go!” His shouting seemed to wake her from a dream, and she flung open the door of his set and started to hurry down the stairs. She was running by the time she reached the pavement, careering down Piccadilly, so that people stopped and turned to watch her hurtle by.

When she reached the basement door of number 110, she was panting, drawing in her breath in gasps. Turton was still in his pantry. He looked up. “How well did we do?”

She ignored the question. “Is Jane Croft back?”

“She’s been back for twenty minutes. She was only a quarter of an hour ahead of the mistress.”

Ellis’s heart was pounding in her chest. “The mistress is back?”

“She is. She asked after you, but I said you’d gone out and she didn’t seem to mind. She went upstairs, took off her cape and bonnet, and went straight into the drawing room.”

“So Jane…?” Ellis’s voice trailed off.

“She’s in there with her now. The mistress rang for her as soon as she was settled and Miss Croft has just gone up.”

There was a moment of hope. If Croft had gone straight in, maybe the papers would still be in her case. Without a word, Ellis turned on her heel and started to race up the stairs, on and on, two at a time, past the drawing room floor, past two floors of family bedrooms, until at last she had reached the attics. She raced to her own room, but the case was on the bed, open, and the leather envelope was gone.

It was the nearest Mary Ellis would ever come to owning a thousand pounds. Or anything like it.

Anne could not have been more delighted to see Sophia’s former maid. The sight of the woman, older of course but not so changed as to be unrecognizable, reminded Anne that she had always liked her. And talking together seemed to take them both back to happier times. She invited the maid who was no longer a maid to sit in her presence. She had asked for some cordial to be brought up, and now she offered her visitor a glass.

“Do you remember the Duchess’s famous ball?” asked Anne.

“I should, madam. I’ve been asked about it often enough in the years since.” She took the cordial and sipped it. She found it a little sharp, but the honor of being invited to take a glass with the mistress was reward enough. It didn’t have to taste nice. “And I remember how beautiful Miss Sophia looked in her dress.” Croft smiled.

“Her hair was so pretty.” Anne was in her own reverie.

“I took some trouble over it, I can tell you,” said Croft, and they laughed.

It was good to laugh and not cry for once, thought Anne; to share their happy memories of Sophia before they parted. But then that same memory forced her to change the tone. “She was very upset that night, when we got home.”

“Yes,” said the maid, but she did not dare elaborate.

Anne stared at her. “It’s a long time ago now, and I’m glad to hear you’ve prospered. I’m sure your life in America will be rewarding and full. But since we may not meet again…” She hesitated.

“We won’t meet again, madam,” said Croft softly.

“No.” Anne looked at the fire burning in the grate. “So I wonder if we may be honest with each other for this last moment together?”

“Certainly, madam.”

“Do you know what happened that night at the ball?”

Croft nodded. It was odd to be having this conversation with a woman she would once have curtsied to. It was almost as if they were equals. Which in a way, when it came to this business, they were. “I know that Lord Bellasis, him that we’d all thought such a proper gentleman, had tricked and betrayed her, and she learned it that night.”

“Did you know about the wedding charade before then?”

“No.” The maid was anxious to show that she had not been party to hiding secrets until Sophia forced her to be. “She never told me anything about it until it was found to be false. And of course it was only later that she…” Croft sipped her cordial and looked at the floor.

“That she discovered she was pregnant.” It was odd for Anne, too, to be able to talk about the subject with another human being who was not her husband or Lady Brockenhurst. She had never done such a thing before.

“I asked her to tell you, ma’am. Right away. Straight off. But it was as if she was in a daze and somehow couldn’t think.”

“She told me in the end.”

“Yes,” said Croft.

They stared at each other. They knew so much that no one else knew. No one else except James. Even Lady Brockenhurst, who thought she knew everything, had never met Sophia, so she was missing half the story. Anne spoke again. “She told me in time to make our plans for traveling north. And all might have been well, if only…”

“If only she hadn’t died.” Croft’s eyes were full of tears and, as Anne watched, one brimmed over and ran down the former maid’s cheek. Anne loved her for crying over her lost child. “I suppose the baby’s grown up by now. Is he still living with the Reverend Mr. Pope? Or is he in London now? I assume he’s the young Mr. Pope that Miss Ellis told me about?”

“But how did you know about the Reverend Mr. Pope?”

Croft looked at her. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know as you’ll want to hear it.” She stopped.

“Go on,” said Anne. “Please.”

Her visitor’s tone was apologetic when she spoke again, revealing the secrets of long ago. “You see, Miss Sophia used to write to me, ma’am. Up until the end. We talked about the baby and what would happen, and she wrote that he or she was to go and live with the Popes in Surrey. I seem to remember that Mrs. Pope was childless, although I’ve lost the letter where she said it.”

Anne was astonished. “So you know everything.”

“I haven’t told a soul, I swear. Hand on my heart,” said Croft, doing just that. “I won’t ever discuss it with anyone, either.”

“Don’t worry,” replied Anne. “I find it comforting. That she had someone else to talk to.”

And now Croft took up the leather envelope and placed it on
her lap. “I have some papers here, madam.” She hesitated. “One of them testifies to the false marriage. It’s signed by the man who said he was a priest. He names himself Bouverie. I suppose you’d call it the marriage certificate, if it weren’t a lie. Then there’s a letter from Bouverie describing how the young couple came to marry in Brussels so far from home.” She paused as she pulled out the two sheets of paper. “She gave them to me that night in Brussels, when she got home from the ball, and told me to burn them, but I never did. I didn’t have the nerve. I didn’t feel they were mine to destroy.”

“I see that.” Anne took the papers and glanced through their contents.

“But I’m leaving the country now, and especially as Miss Ellis mentioned Mr. Pope in her letter to me, I thought it would be best to give you everything. I don’t know if you’ll want to keep them safe. You might want to burn them yourself. But that’s for you to decide, not me.” With that, she handed the leather satchel over.

“Thank you, Croft—I should call you
Miss
Croft now—that is generous and thoughtful.” Anne took it and looked inside. “What are the rest?”