‘I realize that. What frightens me so much is the thought of what might have happened to her on that journey, as well as what she may be enduring now.’ She looked down again at the map with unhappy eyes, her words faltering. ‘Perhaps I’m already too late in getting here. She may be—’
He guessed what she was about to say and seized her by the arms, giving her a slight shake. ‘No! Don’t even think it! She’s somewhere in this city and she is alive. I checked at the morgue half an hour ago. There’s been nobody of her description there during the past two months.’
She closed her eyes thankfully for a moment, but drew back from him, for his very nearness seemed to vibrate in her nostrils. ‘That was thoughtful of you. I had dreaded going there myself.’
‘I have to tell you that I questioned the servants last night and Delphine did come to this house too, but it was when I was away in New York. Here, as at the Bradshaws’ home, I’m thankful to say she was given food, but when she returned another day, she was sent away empty-handed and told not to return.’
‘My poor foolish sister,’ Louise said. Her voice sounded strangely dry and tired.
Daniel folded the map and handed it to her. ‘Look for her among the beggars today. They come back regularly to the spots they consider to be the best for them. I have other places to investigate. This evening – if we don’t find her today – I’ll call for you at the hotel and, over dinner, we’ll compare notes on our progress. Then, if you wish, you can come with me to the handing-out of the charity soup and we’ll see if Delphine turns up there. That shall be our programme until she is found.’
Outside, it was not such a bright day as Daniel had predicted, and low clouds promised showers. Louise drew the hood of her borrowed cloak over her head as she and Daniel parted company at the porch steps, she going one way and he the other. He went first to a house of correction to see if any young women had been arrested recently, for he feared Delphine might have been reduced to stealing in order to keep alive. He was relieved to find she was not there.
At the poorhouse, Daniel was equally unsuccessful, as he was afterwards at both the fever and the city hospitals. With all these places eliminated, he took a couple of hours at his office, for having returned from New York only two days before, there were still matters that needed his immediate attention. After dismissing the clerk who had been defrauding him, he waited for a trader, who came promptly at the time arranged to bring him the first lengths of Lyons silk that he had received since the start of France’s revolution. There were twenty precious rolls and, when the protective covering was removed from each, they proved to be in pristine condition and of such quality and magnificence that Daniel almost caught his breath at the sight of them, but his face gave nothing away.
‘How did you come by these silks?’ Daniel asked when the deal had been done to his private satisfaction.
‘At the height of the Reign of Terror, a French aristocrat smuggled them out of Lyons to use as currency when he escaped into Spain. There, brigands murdered the unfortunate fellow and these silks eventually turned up in Barcelona, where I was given a tip-off as to their whereabouts. I snapped them up at once.’
When the trader had gone, Daniel regarded the displayed silks radiating their splendour as if his office were bathed in the rich jewel colours of a stained-glass window. Some were patterned exquisitely with roses or lilies or sprigs of apple blossom, others were plain, but in vibrant hues of coral pink, ruby, pumpkin yellow, forest green and iris blue. As for the rest, one delicate parchment-coloured silk had vertical stripes in silver thread, an amber one was intricately patterned with gold, and a deep violet one had a pin-width stripe in a rich bronze that added magnificently to its lustre. Although the Chinese silks, in which he dealt in great quantities, were equally exquisite, there was an indefinable something about Lyons silk that he considered unique.
He cut a narrow strip from the end of each roll to use as a pattern. Then he summoned two of his experienced workers to stitch each one into a new protective cover of white cloth. The best rolls were to be put aside for Louise, but he knew that he would have to wait a great deal longer before she would accept anything from him. He had to find Delphine first.
Louise spent the day in the areas that Daniel had marked out for her. She had exchanged some dollars for small change with a banker and given one to each beggar she questioned. Some declared they had seen her sister, hoping to get more money, but further questioning proved they were lying. Only one old woman had something plausible to tell.
‘Copper-red ’air, you say?’ she croaked. ‘Yes, I seed a young creature with curls that colour waiting at soup time more than once, but she was always losing her place and getting pushed to the back. It were this day last week I gave ’er a nudge and told ’er to use ’er elbows and shove to the front like me.’
‘Did she?’
‘She didn’t seem to ’ave the strength, and so I grabbed ’er at the waist and pushed ’er meself.’ She cackled. ‘We went through the rest of ’em there like a wagon team. When she ate ’er bread and soup like a starving bitch, I shoved ’er up again for another ladleful. Those charity folk never give more than once to anybody in an evening, but sometimes they’re so busy they don’t notice who’s been afore. She were unlucky, poor little wretch, and they turned her away, but then that colour ’air ain’t easily forgot. I should ’ave thought of that.’ She frowned, compressing her lips in self-reproach. ‘No, ma’am, I ain’t seen her there since.’
Louise put several coins in the old woman’s eager hand. ‘If you do see her again, please tell her that her sister is staying at the hotel opposite the State Hall.’
‘I will. The sooner you get ’er away from that man who ’angs about ’er, the better. He’s real bad.’
With this additional information arousing new fears, Louise wondered exactly how deep the morass was that her sister had fallen into through running away. If only Delphine had waited until morning, she would have been told of Alexandre and Blanche’s wonderful offer to adopt her child.
That evening at dinner with Daniel, Louise was able to report what appeared to have been a genuine sighting of Delphine, but she was relieved to hear from him that her sister was not in any of the grim places that he had visited. Then she gave him a full account of all that had happened between her sister and the Dutchman, as well as Delphine’s total rejection of the baby and Alexandre and Blanche’s wish to adopt him.
‘Delphine isn’t the first girl to be betrayed and she certainly won’t be the last. Your friends have played their part in helping to solve the situation, and now it’s up to us to continue ours.’ He moved his chair back. ‘It’s time for us to go to the soup kitchen.’
He drove her there in the same two-wheeled carriage in which she had ridden the night before. When they reached the charity soup kitchen, a crowd of destitute people, some with children, had already gathered. But Delphine did not appear, even though they waited until the last stragglers to arrive had departed again. Louise and Daniel had both questioned those willing to talk to them, but without success.
When Daniel had left Louise at her hotel, he drove to the house of correction, where four volunteer keepers of the peace, their status shown by the cockade that each wore on their tricorne hats, were waiting for him as he had requested that morning. They were to accompany him in his search for Delphine throughout the brothels and other dubious establishments. All too often a vulnerable young girl arrived in Boston to be hoodwinked by a procuress and end up in prostitution, just as in cities everywhere in the world. Delphine, in her desperate straits, would have been easy prey.
As he set off in his carriage, the peacekeepers followed in a closed cart, ready for any arrests. As Daniel had expected, their arrival caused consternation at each brothel, with screams from the prostitutes, and men disappearing out of windows or hiding, but on the whole the madams cooperated. They made their girls line up and brought waif-like creatures, some only children, from chores in the kit
chen to be thrust forward and scanned with the rest. After that, the whole establishment was searched in case Delphine was being concealed somewhere.
‘She is not here either,’ Daniel said to the peacekeepers after they came out of the last bawdy house designated for that night, dawn beginning to tint the sky. ‘We’ll be continuing the search at the same time tonight and every night until we have covered the rest of these hellholes.’
The pattern of Louise’s hunt for Delphine continued daily without success, though she had extended the search after noticing that some beggars, often with the side trade of pickpocketing, only went to special places where people gathered closely in numbers, which took her into churches and meeting houses, open-air political speeches, the markets, and once even to the slave auction, where a ship from Africa had unloaded its human cargo. This latter sight distressed her so much that nothing other than her search for Delphine could have kept her there.
The evening came when Louise admitted to Daniel that she feared time was fast running out, which had been in both their minds from the start. They were on their way back to the lodging house after their fourth visit to the soup kitchen. ‘The only places left for me to look for her are the bawdy houses,’ she stated frankly. ‘But you’ll have to mark them on the map for me. If I apply to work at them in turn, I can look for Delphine as soon as I’ve gained entry.’
‘Do you know what you’re saying?’ he asked, astonished.
She shrugged impatiently. ‘Indeed I do. There isn’t a vice you could name that I didn’t hear about at Versailles, so I wouldn’t be going into these places with my eyes shut. I know that what I plan would not be without danger, but before I left the farm, Alexandre gave me a pistol and I’d not hesitate to use it, especially if it meant getting Delphine safely away.’
‘You’re prepared to take such risks for her?’
‘Delphine’s whole life is at stake.’
As he was about to leave, Daniel told her that he had already forestalled her plan. ‘After I leave you now, I’m setting out for the fourth night in succession on a round of the brothels, with no less than four peacekeepers to help in the search. They ensure access to every part of an establishment, even to the cellars.’
She remained silent for a few moments in her deep gratitude. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and of her own volition rested her hand on his arm. He covered it with his own. Then, seeing the warmth deepen in his eyes, she bade him goodnight and went quickly upstairs. In her room she closed her door and leaned back against it. She had yearned almost overpoweringly to feel his arms reassuringly about her.
Daniel and the peacekeepers came out of the last place on their list. They were slightly later than they had been previously and daylight was beginning to lift the sky over the city, which was already astir. Although he had been unsuccessful in finding the French girl, the peacekeepers were well satisfied with the whole operation, having retaken an escaped prisoner who had killed a warden with his bare hands, a woman wanted for theft, two men wanted for mugging and another for rape. This last night the haul consisted only of two prostitutes who had been trying to scratch out each other’s eyes, but upon being thrust in the cart they had turned their venom on the peacekeepers. Their yelled abuse, combined with their hammering and kicking against the inside of the cart, echoed along the street.
Delphine, curled up between a low wall and a warehouse in the hideout she had made her own, paid no attention to the muffled shrieks as the cart was driven past. She was caught in a paroxysm of coughing and, each time, it left her exhausted. Having been lying there for several days, she was no longer fully aware of where she was, moaning softly from the searing pangs of hunger and the savage pain in her injured ankle. Sometimes she thought herself at home in France and at others in the Rousselot ballroom. It was her cough that had kept her away from other homeless people by night, for she had had missiles thrown at her for disturbing their sleep. After having been raped, robbed and abandoned at the roadside, and having been unable to find the refuge she had expected in Boston, her attempt to find work had been thwarted by the state of her clothes and her lack of references. She would have played her flute and begged if it had not been stolen from her with everything else.
Finally an old man who lived alone had taken her in, but it was not only housework he had wanted from her and she had left in a hurry. At least she had had time to launder her clothes, as well as bath and wash her hair, not knowing then that he was watching her through a crack in the door. She had also managed to steal three of his deceased wife’s gowns without his knowledge, which she sold for food, but after sleeping rough again her appearance soon deteriorated.
She had not dared to go back to Daniel’s house after her second enquiry, for a bad-tempered footman, recognizing her from before, had thrown her from the door with such force that she had fallen in a sprawl of limbs and hurt her ankle. It had left her with a painful limp, which meant she could no longer run. With this handicap, she had not dared to go again to the soup kitchen, where a brutal-looking man with bushy yellow hair had constantly harassed her. He had kept trying to grab her away with him into the dark and each time she had only escaped through speed.
At first she had hobbled to the Lombard office to ask after Daniel, only to be told he was still away. Sometimes all the nourishment she had in a day was on these visits, when a clerk gave her a piece of bread from his midday snack. When the pain had become too agonising for her to put any weight on her foot, she had decided that a complete rest would heal it. Instead, her strength had ebbed and she could no longer move from her hideout.
It helped that sometimes she seemed to be at home in France and could run wherever she wished, but now she was alone in the Rousselot ballroom and it was not as she remembered it. Only one candle was alight and it was burning low at a curious speed. In panic at being left in the dark, she rushed to get out before it extinguished itself, but the doors had vanished. Although she ran from wall to wall, constantly meeting her own reflection in the mirrors, there was no way out. Then, as the darkness closed in, she was aware of the yellow-haired man looming over her. Screaming, she hit out frantically . . . but firm hands caught her wrists and it was Daniel’s voice that spoke to her.
‘Delphine! You’re safe now. I’ve come to take you home with me.’
Twelve
As Daniel gathered Delphine up in his arms, her skeletal condition alarmed him. Previously he must have passed her at least twice in the darkness and it was only the early daylight that had enabled him to see from his high driving seat that someone was curled up behind the low wall.
As he carried her into his house he sent a servant running to fetch a doctor, another to summon Louise and a third with instructions to the housekeeper. Mrs Carter, who always had hot water ready for his bath when he returned from his searching, came hurrying with two maidservants carrying jugs. As soon as he had left the bedroom where he had laid Delphine on the bed, the three women removed her filthy clothes and washed her from head to foot. Her tangled curls were combed as gently as possible, although some strands were too knotted to be unravelled and would have to be cut away later. Finally they put her into a lace-trimmed nightgown that one of Daniel’s almost-forgotten mistresses had left behind long ago.
When Louise arrived, Daniel came from the drawing room, where he had been watching for her from the window. She ran to him.
‘How is she? Where did you find her?’
He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Not in a brothel, but behind a wall. As for her health, Dr Harvey is with her now. We shall have his report very shortly.’
She made a move towards the stairs. ‘Which room is she in?’
‘Wait!’ He took her firmly by the elbow and steered her into the drawing room. ‘I want to prepare you for her changed appearance. Delphine is painfully thin and has a bad cough. She has also injured her right ankle and it is horribly swollen. I doubt if she has been able to walk on it for several days. But,’ he added on a brighter note, �
��she is here now and I’ll ensure that she gets the best medical attention until she is completely well again.’
Louise had pressed her linked fingers against her trembling mouth, but lowered them as she spoke, her eyes full of gratitude. ‘Both she and I will be for ever in your debt for all you have done for us.’ Then she turned her head sharply as the doctor was heard coming down the stairs.
Dr Harvey came into the drawing room. He was in his forties, an alert, intelligent-looking man with a way of tilting his head slightly as if he were long used to listening patiently to those consulting him. He bowed as Daniel introduced him to Louise.
‘Your sister is in a severely emaciated state, ma’am, and she has a fever from her inflamed lungs. I’ve left a bottle of physic that should relieve the coughing. As for her ankle, it is not broken, only badly sprained.’ He flicked his hand to indicate that was only a minor problem. ‘Her strength has to be built up again. She must have nourishing liquids, a little at a time and often.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘In fact, the next few days will be critical. She will need careful nursing around the clock if we’re going to save her.’
Louise gave a cry of distress. ‘Is it so serious? I’ll do everything in my power to help her get well again!’
‘I’m sure you will, ma’am.’ He exchanged a solemn glance with Daniel. ‘I’ll call again this evening.’
Rushing upstairs, Louise found Mrs Carter sitting by the bedside. The woman rose immediately. ‘I’ve already sent word down to the kitchen for a hot posset to be prepared for the patient. Dr Harvey gave me a list of nourishing liquids and light food that Miss Delphine is to be given.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Carter.’
As the woman left the room, Louise took the vacated chair. Although she had been prepared for her sister’s appearance, it was still a severe shock when she saw Delphine’s hollow-cheeked face, her closed eyes sunk in their sockets and her lips drained of colour. Reaching out, Louise lifted her sister’s thin hand from the coverlet and held it between her own.
New World, New Love Page 16
