Diamonds & Deceit (26 page)

Ada paused in the corridor, glimpsing Charlotte in the drawing room with Cooper. Charlotte’s back was turned, but Ada heard her saying, “And the guest rooms, are they prepared? I am sure Lady Ellingborough would like fresh flowers in her room, and Laurence I expect will like a room to compose himself for the wedding as soon as he arrives.”

“I’ll see to it at once, miss,” Cooper replied.

Ada drew a slight breath of surprise: Charlotte, helping with the preparations? It was unprecedented. Charlotte turned around, and Ada was struck by the expression on her face. Instead of the usual sulky, mutinous look, it was softer, and strangely self-conscious.

“I’m sorry, I overheard, and…are you really helping? I’m so grateful. It is a lot of work.” She spoke warmly, and was rewarded by Charlotte’s slight blush.

“I want to help,” Charlotte said awkwardly. She showed Ada the notebook she held. “I was just cataloguing the wedding gifts. You have received a beautiful set of porcelain from Mrs. Verulam.”

“That’s wonderful,” Ada said.

Charlotte hesitated. As Cooper moved discreetly away, she spoke in a rush. “I overheard you and the bridesmaids when we were at the church. I’m grateful for your rescue.”

“Oh…” Ada found herself feeling awkward. It had been such a natural thing to do that she had not thought about it since. “It was nothing. Emily sometimes allows her mischievous spirit to run away with her. I am sure she did not realize the damage her gossip could cause.”

“Yes, but after we have so often been on…not the best of terms…it was a generous action on your part.” Charlotte seemed equally awkward, and Ada thought with amusement that Charlotte seemed much happier when she was in conflict with others.

“I…I would like to be a better sister to you, in the future, if you’ll let me.” There was a slight note of pleading in her voice.

Ada, astonished but delighted, smiled at her. “That’s a very kind and wonderful thing to say,” she said. “Nothing this year has made me happier.”

“Not even when Laurence proposed?” Charlotte’s voice had a strange half laugh, half sob in it.

Ada noticed and was puzzled. She forced a smile, and spoke quickly to avoid showing her mixed feelings about her wedding. “I am sorry that this season didn’t bring you joy also,” she said. “I know your mother is very keen to see you settled, and it must be tiring, sometimes.”

Charlotte shrugged coldly, and Ada had the sense that a curtain had been allowed to fall back. “Oh,” her stepsister said, lightly, “I am used to it.” She turned and walked quickly out of the room.

Thoughtfully, Ada watched her go. Perhaps Charlotte’s heart was not as ironclad as she liked people to think.

Michael pulled the motorcar over to the side of the road. Georgiana gazed around them in shock, and covered her mouth and nose. It stank of open sewers.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” she whispered. The houses around her were half collapsing, slipping down into the mud of the Thames, propped up by shanties and shacks from which barefoot, dirty children peeped. A small crowd had collected at the end of the street, staring at them.

“This is where they directed us to.” Michael’s face was grim. He got out of the car. “Come on.”

Georgiana hesitated. She was tired from the long drive. It had taken all day, and she was frightened by the place where she found herself. She almost felt that she had left England and ended up in a foreign country. The green fields of Somerton seemed so far away. But she could not let Priya down now. She had taken responsibility for Somerton and that meant all the staff too.

She got down and, holding her skirts as far out of the mud as possible, followed Michael across the street and into the shadowy maze of houses. The sun seemed to cut out here, and the faces peering at them from doorways were no longer children, but adults. Georgiana sniffed as she smelled something familiar:
roti
. She glanced to the side and saw an Indian man crouching inside a house, cooking the flat breads over a small fire. He stared at her with blank curiosity. Georgiana looked away hastily, then remembered what they were there for.

“Michael.” She pulled his sleeve. “Let me ask that man if he’s seen her.”

Michael followed her across to the crouching man, who watched them approach with the same wary, emotionless stare. Georgiana licked her lips; for a moment she thought her memory would desert her, and then the words came back to her.

“
Please…girl, my age, smaller than me…pregnant…you have seen her
?” she fumbled in Bengali. She tried to describe Priya, her hands working as much as her tongue as she described the way Priya would be dressed, the shape of her face. The man shook his head slowly. Georgiana’s face fell. It was impossible to tell if he did not know, did not understand her, or did not want to understand her.

“
Someone
must have seen her,” Michael said. “We must keep looking. A girl like Priya would stand out here.”

Georgiana nodded. She didn’t say what she knew Michael was thinking: a girl like Priya might stand out and come to harm.

They made their way down the street, asking everyone they saw. None of the lascars had an answer for them. The children giggled behind them, following them deeper into the slum. Georgiana felt panic rising inside her. How would they ever get out?
Would
they ever get out? She tried to force herself to breathe calmly.

Then she spotted something that made her shriek in excitement. “Michael—look!” She pointed toward a pawnbroker’s window. There hung a gray woman’s coat.

“It’s hers. I know, I’ve seen her wear it when she goes to the village.” She rushed over and fingered the cloth. “See here, I remember this darn. These people must know something!”

Michael turned to the pawnbroker, who was watching them nervously. “How did this coat come here? We’re looking for a young girl, an Indian girl, who would have arrived in this neighborhood not long ago. She would have been smartly dressed.”

The pawnbroker shook his head. “We’ll pay for information,” Georgiana said, perhaps too eagerly.

The pawnbroker smiled, showing bad teeth. “You put your purse away, my dear. This is a bad neighborhood to have money in.” He turned and called into the back, “Rachel!”

A thin, big-eyed girl came forward from the darkness in the shop. She looked twelve, but Georgiana realized that the girl had to be close to her own age.

“You tell her, miss. She’s as likely to have seen her as me.”

“Did you see this lady?” Georgiana quickly described Priya to her.

To her joy, Rachel nodded. “I did, miss, yes. She came and sold that there coat. I gave her a shilling for it.”

“Where did she go then? Did she tell you what her plans were?” Michael demanded.

The girl hesitated, rubbing her bare foot along her thin shin. She glanced at the pawnbroker. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know, miss. I’m sorry.”

“Well, did you see which way she went?”

Rachel gestured with her chin toward the dankest of the small alleys that led off from the square.

Georgiana’s heart sank. “Thank you. You’ve been a great help.” She pressed a shilling into the girl’s hand and turned away.

Michael strode down the alley, then hesitated, and turned back to offer Georgiana an arm. Georgiana took it gratefully. Clutching each other nervously, they went into the darkness.

There were fewer people here to ask. But at last Georgiana knocked on a door that opened to reveal three Indian men, one with a long white beard and a serene expression, the others very dark and silent.

“
We’re looking for a girl
,” Georgiana began without much hope. As she came to the end of her description, the man with the white beard shook his head.

Georgiana’s heart sank still further. They couldn’t have come all this way, had this stroke of luck of finding her coat, only to have the trail go cold.

She looked around, not knowing what she hoped to spot. A couple of grubby, peaky little urchins still watched her from the corner. They whispered to each other and looked at her. One advanced, as wary as a city pigeon.

“Miss,” he began, speaking from a safe distance. “Was you looking for the Indian girl?”

Georgiana stared at him. She could barely believe what she was hearing.

Michael recovered first. “Yes, we are. Can you tell us where she is? Have you seen her?”

The urchin nodded. He rubbed one foot against his shin. “Gizza penny?” he suggested.

Georgiana fumbled in her purse and handed him a shilling.

“Cor, thanks, miss!” The urchin’s eyes widened, and he popped the coin in his mouth—not having any pockets. “I saw an Indian girl go in there.” He pointed toward a lumberyard, dank and depressed looking. “She went in that shack.”

He scampered off. Georgiana and Michael looked at each other and then at the lumberyard. It was deserted and dank. Old planks and salvaged bricks were piled together in heaps. The gate was locked and chained, but Georgiana walked closer and saw that the chain was rusted through.

“You think she could be in there?” She looked into the forbidding place. There was a shack, certainly, but it was so tumbledown looking that it hardly provided shelter. “But why would she go there?”

Michael shook his head and pulled the gate open. It opened with a squeal of hinges. They went through, and Georgiana followed Michael, fearfully, to the shack.

Michael pulled open the door. Georgiana’s eyes grew used to the darkness. There were old planks lying about, puddles of dank water, some old barrels and sacks in the corner.

“Oh, she can’t be in here,” she exclaimed, horrified. “Michael, come away.” She tugged at his sleeve, and then froze as something on the sacks moved and moaned faintly.

“Michael.” Priya’s weak voice floated toward them. Then she began to cough, great racking coughs that shook her whole body.

“Priya!” Michael gasped, and ran forward to take her in his arms.

Georgiana followed.

“Don’t—don’t let him in—no, no!” Priya gasped as Michael lifted her up.

“There isn’t anyone here, just us,” Michael soothed her. But Priya pulled away, and Georgiana was shocked by the terror in her eyes.

“I must hide!” She lapsed into Hindi, her eyes glinting white in the dim light.

“What’s happening to her? Is she mad?” Michael sounded terrified.

“Delirious.” Georgiana put a hand on her forehead. “Oh, she has a fever. Quick, we must get her out of here.”

Together they struggled to get Priya out of the shack. Rain had begun to fall. Michael swept Priya into his arms and Georgiana followed them out of the lumberyard. Her dark hair hung down, soaked in the rain.

“But where shall we take her? What shall we do?” Michael was half sobbing as they reached the road. Georgiana could not cry. She was too frightened for tears. Priya’s face was white and she seemed barely conscious, her head lolling on Michael’s shoulder. Now and then she coughed, a racking cough that seemed to rattle her bones like a sack of scrap metal.

“We must get a cab.” Georgiana waved to a boy who was kicking a stone in the gutter. “Get me a cab, be quick.” She pressed a shilling into his hand and the boy took off at speed. “Oh, I hope he comes back!” She turned to see Michael leaning against the wall, holding Priya’s head between his hands.

“She can’t hear me. She’s hardly breathing,” Michael said. “Georgie, what are we going to do?”

Georgiana looked round at the sound of hooves. A cab was coming toward her, the driver looking half inclined to drive on at the sight of them. She had to be firm. She had to forget how afraid she was, forget that she knew no one in London, and act like the chatelaine of Somerton Court. She summoned up all her strength and stepped boldly out to claim the cab. And then she knew where to go.

“Take us to Lordswell Street, number twenty-three,” she told the driver as he jumped down. “And quickly—the lady is unwell.”

They scrambled into the cab and she helped Michael steady Priya as they jolted along. She was cold and her pulse was so weak that for one terrifying second Georgiana thought she was dead.

“Priya, listen to me. Can you hear me? It’s over, you’re safe. You’ll be safe now,” Michael kept repeating. Georgiana did not interrupt, but she wondered to herself how safe Priya could ever be now. Her gaze kept returning to Priya’s stomach. How could she not have known? She pressed Priya’s hand, rubbing it, trying to drive the warmth back into it. She did not think she would ever forgive herself for letting this happen.