by Y. S. Lee
Neutral as his expression remained, Mary felt prickles rising along her spine. They were finally reaching the critical part of Lang’s tale, at least so far as it concerned her.
Lang cleared his throat. “At the end of his leave, my uncle offered to take me to England with him. I know this because I stayed awake, listening to them talk. He offered to train me as a sailor, and said there was much I could learn outside Hong’s cult.” He swallowed. “My mother was incensed. Not only had her brother failed to appreciate her talent and hard work, and the divinely inspired visions of Hong Xiuquan; not only had he tried to persuade her from her moral obligations in favour of the lesser ideal of family; he now threatened to take her only child with him. She denounced her twin brother as a traitor to her heavenly family.”
Mary stared at him for a long moment. “What happened?” she whispered.
Lang’s expression was blank, his voice flat and clear and hard. “Your father was savagely beaten before my eyes. All our eyes. He was then driven to the nearest harbour and thrown, unconscious, onto the first cargo ship leaving Fujian. That was the last time I saw him, and I never heard anything else. Until recently.”
“Why didn’t they kill him?” asked Mary. “If they thought him a traitor, they should have executed him.”
“At the last moment, my mother begged for clemency.”
Mary stared at him. “But she denounced him…”
“And almost immediately regretted her words. She found, in the end, that she couldn’t choose between Hong and her brother.”
“And they listened to her?” Mary still found it astounding, the concept of a woman commanding male soldiers in combat.
Lang nodded. “It cost her dearly, of course. She was demoted to foot-soldier because she was so closely allied with a traitor. But Hong was wise enough to keep her loyalty. She was too intelligent and committed to the movement to discard entirely.”
Mary nodded. She could surmise the rest: severe injuries leading to opium addiction, a high possibility of capture and enslavement by pirates and an eventual return of the broken man to London. Upon learning of the death of his wife and the disappearance of his only child, his heartbreak and disgrace would have been complete.
She sat, dry-eyed, in a Newgate pub, across the table from her newfound cousin. She was, for the first time in her life, in possession of the facts of her father’s last voyage – of one partial version of the story, at least. It was a most peculiar thing to hear. The tale was simultaneously so much more and so much less than she’d tried to imagine. Of course, her father had tried to save his beloved sister; of course, his heart had broken when she’d turned on him. And he’d returned to England, to the family he had not meant to abandon, only to find that it had evaporated, as well.
Mary thought once again of the cigar box containing her father’s papers, which had burned in the fire at the Lascars’ Refuge. Would having that box help her now? Would it reveal any more than Lang had told her? Assuming his tale was accurate, that is. He’d been a child of twelve and subject to a boy’s misunderstandings, the misting of memory by time. Yet he was here, now, apparently on the strength of that story.
“What do you expect from me?” she demanded.
Her sharp tone didn’t seem to surprise Lang. “You were the one who wanted something from me.”
“A story.”
“More than a story. History.”
“And if I want nothing more to do with you?”
“Then I remain as I was an hour ago.” He seemed to mean it, too. He sat perfectly still, those clean, deadly hands wrapped loosely around the brandy glass.
“You knew he was dead some months ago. Why didn’t you give up then?”
“Leave the country, you mean? I suppose I hoped it was a case of mistaken identity. That your father was still alive, and could set me straight. Foolishness.”
She took a deep breath. “And now that you know he is dead and disgraced?”
He lifted his gaze to hers, truly looking at her for the first time since he’d begun his tale. She suppressed a gasp: from this angle, his undamaged eye was just like her father’s. “That depends upon you,” he said. “Cousin.”
Eight
The same day, early afternoon
Newgate Street, London
Each day, after the dinner hour, a sleepy lull descended upon the streets of London. Labourers trickled back to their tasks, sluggish with bread and beer; market-traders had done the best of their day’s business; the homeward rush of workers seemed impossibly far in the future. Mary usually took this opportunity to review her morning’s work. Today, especially, she would have welcomed a quarter-hour to think about her fateful morning – an unlikely chance meeting, the discovery of a long-lost cousin, the sudden revelations surrounding her father’s disappearance. Lang was gone now, she knew not where. They had agreed, vaguely, to meet again, but they each had much – almost too much – upon which to reflect. Just now, however, there would be no pause: the tract widow had suddenly decamped. One moment, the lady was there as usual, seeking to save the world. A minute later, she had lowered her veil, swept her array of reading materials into her dainty basket and started at an uncompromising pace down the street, deeper into the City.
Mary blinked and pushed all thoughts of Lang from her mind. Progress, at last. She gave the widow a lead of about a hundred yards – it was easy enough to keep her in sight during this relatively quiet time of day – and then set off in pursuit. However, she had scarcely taken a dozen steps when a large black carriage drew up beside her. Mary looked up with a frown – most coachmen were no respecters of pedestrians – and was startled to see a lady’s gloved hand, wearing a signet ring, in the window. The ring was engraved with a lightly stylized capital “A”, a symbol that was as plain as it was familiar to Mary. Could it be? She glanced at the driver, who nodded once, a small movement.
Mary sighed and stopped while the carriage halted by the roadside. An instant later, the coachman was at Mary’s elbow, unfolding the steps and offering her an arm for stability. Mary couldn’t resist: she looked this person – another agent? – in the eye, but didn’t recognize her. At least she presumed it was a woman incognito. How many agents had remained loyal to Anne Treleaven and the Agency? She wondered if she’d ever find the courage to ask.
The carriage door had scarcely closed behind her when the woman on the bench spoke. “Thank you for stopping,” she said, in a quiet voice.
Mary didn’t sit. “Miss Treleaven, I’m just this moment on the trail of a woman who could be Mrs Thorold. I still have time to catch up with her, if I get down now.”
“The lady in mourning, carrying a basket? That wasn’t Mrs Thorold.”
Mary stared, astonished. “How can you be certain?”
Anne’s smile was slightly twisted. “It was Felicity Frame.” She paused to let Mary digest the news. “Remember, Felicity and I knew each other intimately for over a decade.” Anne’s use of the past tense did not escape Mary, and she wondered again about the painful split between her two former managers. “She is one of the few people I would recognize anywhere in the world, regardless of disguise. I’d say the same is true of me, in her eyes.”
“In that case,” said Mary, deeply embarrassed, “I am sorry to have wasted so much time and opportunity monitoring her.”
Anne shrugged. “It was a reasonable theory. And I suspect Felicity was also watching you, hoping that you would lead her to Mrs Thorold.”
The carriage lurched suddenly, turning around, and Mary sat down with an involuntary thump. “Where are we going now?” she asked.
“To a coaching inn near the Crystal Palace.”
The Crystal Palace! Mary thought of that strange edifice of steel and glass, sprawling over the prim suburban villas of south London like a vision of the future.
“You will wonder why,” said Anne, with characteristic understatement. “But I fear that I must begin by asking you a question. For another favour, in fact.”
Now that Mary was seated and listening, she realized that Anne’s façade of calm was precisely that. Beneath the surface, Anne Treleaven was abuzz with excitement. Anne was generally the epitome of cool professionalism, and this departure made Mary’s stomach lurch, not entirely unpleasantly. “Yes?”
“Angelica Thorold has arrived in London,” said Anne. “She is alone.” She paused and Mary found that she needed the moment. It was extremely difficult to imagine Angelica Thorold, a spoiled only daughter, undertaking such an arduous journey unaccompanied. Although her sheltered and luxurious life had ended with her father’s imprisonment and her mother’s flight from justice, Angelica was still a young lady born and bred. And young ladies did not travel alone.
“I received word that she arrived this morning on the overnight coach from Dover,” explained Anne. “She’s been travelling non-stop for nearly a fortnight, now, in order to reach her father in time. But something has gone wrong – it seems she hasn’t a place to stay.”
Mary absorbed that. “Do you know what her original arrangement was?” Angelica Thorold was pampered, but possessed a keen practical intelligence: she would never embark on a gruelling, 700-mile journey without considering the basics.
Anne shook her head. “I’ve not been able to get close enough. We’ve had agents posted at the major coaching inns in London, watching the Dover and Folkstone coaches. She was only spotted a few hours ago as she disembarked, at which point I was notified.”
“Do you think she knows she’s being watched?”
Anne hesitated. “It depends. At this point, we must operate using two simultaneous theories: the first is that she is in league with her mother. In that case, she would presume that Scotland Yard is searching for them, and that all possible precautions are necessary. Or she may be what she appears: a grieving daughter come to see her dying father, in which case she will merely be exhausted and angry and feeling lost.”
Mary thought about that. “And there was no one to meet her?”
“No. She has twice sent messages through an errand boy to a house in Ashburn Place, not far from here, but no reply was given.”
“What else has she done?”
“Waited. Wept a little. She asked about a room at the inn, and when the landlord found her question funny – he made rather an off-colour joke about it – she grew very angry.”
Mary smiled. That rang true; Angelica had always been hot-tempered and imperious. Whatever her reason for arriving in London, the past fortnight must have been among the most exhausting and humbling of her life. “What would you like me to do?” asked Mary. The carriage tilted slightly around a corner, and part of Anne’s answer slid into Mary’s lap: a large, tidy bundle of women’s clothing.
Anne looked vaguely apologetic. “I expect you’ve already guessed. I’d like you to feign a chance meeting at the inn and renew your acquaintance. Ideally, you’ll arrange for her to stay at the Academy, where we can keep a very close eye on her, but the overall aim is for you to gain her trust. I need hardly add that she’s our best chance of getting to her mother.” Anne paused, the slightest hint of uncertainty entering her expression. “Do you wish to hear more at this point?” The classic Agency challenge, yet Mary was already deeply implicated in the project.
Instead of answering the question, Mary asked, “Do you know whether she’s definitely in touch with her mother?”
Anne shook her head. “I’m afraid not. And I need hardly warn you that it’s a sensitive subject, best approached obliquely.”
“Of course.” A pause. Mary sifted through the heap of fabric at her side: good-quality woollens and muslins, well-worn, neatly mended. Naturally, Anne had thought of this. Mary’s street-seller’s dress was cheap and showy – to a lady’s eyes, at any rate. Even prostrate with grief and exhaustion, Angelica Thorold was unlikely to miss such a clanging error. “Have you thought of a cover story? It seems I’m to appear as a governess or lady’s companion of some sort.”
Anne nodded. “I’ll explain it as you change. That is, should you accept the assignment.”
Mary answered the question with her actions. As the carriage jostled along the cobblestones, she quickly shed her coarse frock and began the laborious process of putting on a lady’s dress. Climbing into a crinoline, even a narrow one, inside a small carriage was awkward and required some fierce wrestling with the hoop, but she managed it without kicking the door open. A heavy flannel petticoat came next. Anne would need to adjust this afterwards, as there was no space for Mary to ensure that it sat evenly on the metal cage. And finally, the dress. This one wasn’t too bad: it had buttons in front, for women who did not have maids to dress them, and a narrower skirt than those currently in vogue.
It was impossible to go through this rigmarole without recalling the first time she’d changed in a carriage: at James Easton’s behest, only days after they’d met. It was startling to remember how little she’d liked him then. Fortunately, his arrogance had been tempered by sound judgement and a grudging respect for her intellect. That combination had enabled them to collaborate, and eventually to become friends.
Mary shook herself free of reminiscence. Standing as best she could in the swaying carriage, she asked Anne, “Do I look the part?” She had to admit that the dress fitted extremely well: it was a reminder of how acute Anne’s judgement usually was, even in small matters.
Anne busied herself with the skirt hems, arranging layers of fabric so that they draped evenly over the crinoline. “Of course you do. As you know, it’s more about the way one carries oneself than the details of the costume.”
Mary nodded. “You’re the one who taught me that.” You and Felicity Frame, she thought.
Anne cleared her throat. “The simplest explanation for being at the inn is that you are meeting someone from your employer’s household: a new housemaid, perhaps. You should choose someone who populates the household as you imagine it. She’ll be coming in from Maidstone, and thus she would have been on the same coach on which Angelica travelled.”
Mary nodded. “And if Angelica asks where I’m currently living, what shall I say? If she agrees to stay at the Academy, I don’t want to tell her I’m near by.”
“I see your point. Well, what about Knightsbridge? We’ve a useful contact in Victoria Road who could help us maintain the fiction, if it comes to that.”
Twin sensations of excitement and anxiety wormed their way into Mary’s stomach. Anne’s use of “if it comes to that” suggested a prolonged involvement with Angelica Thorold, and thus this case. Prolonged usually led to complicated, and complicated always led to dangerous. Yet this was just the work she loved best: active, unpredictable, fully absorbing.
The carriage slowed. Mary drew the window curtain aside an inch. They were very near the inn and the roadway was dense with animals, coaches, carts, carriages, people and confusion. The inn was called, appropriately enough, the Coach and Horses. It was a two-storey building that seemed to sprawl in all directions, squatting as it did on the corner of a busy junction. Two long-distance coaches were being loaded on the street outside, with all the attendant bustle and shouting and commotion that seemed inevitably to attend a journey.
Mary scanned the crowd for anything significant. The scene felt like something Anne and Felicity might have devised for her during her training as a test of observational skills. Travellers milled anxiously, supervising the loading of their baggage: neat valises, heavy corded trunks, even a vast, irregular bundle that reminded Mary for all the world of half a cow wrapped in burlap. As always, coachmen and travellers had their familiars: half-grown boys ducking and darting about the wheels, intent either on earning a penny or stealing anything unguarded; travellers’ friends and families, watching the preparations with misgiving in their eyes; and the usual assortment of bystanders a busy street produced, all with advice to give, things to sell, opinions to declare.
Anne’s voice was as cool and quiet as ever. “I know this is highly irregular, Mary. I must al
so caution you to consider yourself in the company of a dangerous person. Mothers and daughters are so often cut from the same cloth. Bearing that in mind, are you ready to begin?”
The question was purely a formality. Mary was the only person for the task; there was no possibility that Angelica Thorold would follow a stranger out of the pub towards a promise of safe lodging. “I’m ready, Miss Treleaven.”
To her surprise, relief softened Anne’s tightly drawn features. A pause. Then, very quietly, “Thank you, Mary. I appreciate this.”
Mary nodded, sudden tears stinging the backs of her eyes. Anne Treleaven was normally so clipped, so perfectly emotionless, that even this modest admission came as a revelation. “Well, then,” she said, trying for a light-hearted tone, “wish me luck?”
“Of course,” said Anne, with the smallest of smiles. “Although I doubt you’ll need it.”
Outside the Coach and Horses, the scene was hectic; inside was pure chaos compressed within timbered walls. Mary paused on the threshold, struck by the vivid differences between the types of public houses she’d recently visited. She was beginning to appreciate what a clean, orderly ship Mrs Bridges ran, and just how difficult that must be. In fairness, the Coach and Horses was roughly four times the size of the Hangman, and bursting with coaching passengers and all who served them. Still, every person in there was striving, with varying degrees of success, for attention. Coachmen hollered at the ostlers, who barked at the stable boys. Cooks bawled at their skivvies. They dodged, whining, around the barmen who, in turn, roared at them for getting in the way. Somewhere in the middle of the mayhem, a tiny baby yowled: a round, dark hole of a mouth that seemed to emit no sound, so great was the din.
