by Y. S. Lee
She looked again at the notice. Now that she knew where she was — knew that it had to be his — it seemed surprising she’d ever doubted the handwriting. Denial was a waste of energy, but at this hour, she simply couldn’t contemplate more. She had to go — to bed, to sleep if possible, and, at some point, to consider two inevitable tasks that lay before her.
James Easton.
Lang Jin Hai.
Both men she’d have to talk to in the near future. She couldn’t imagine anything she’d like more. Or less.
Morning came far too soon, but sleep not at all. Mary lay awake through the cold night, listening to Amy’s breathing and the muffled chiming of a distant grandfather clock, measuring out the quarter hours. At six, she pulled herself out of bed, feeling utterly bruised in spirit. Appropriately, she was also somewhat damaged in body: the hawthorns had made their mark, leaving a number of deep scratches on the backs of her hands and one on her neck. She pulled a face at her reflection to gruesome good effect, the dark circles beneath her eyes made more macabre by the way Amy’s cheap looking glass swelled her chin and shrank her forehead. She’d always dreamed of being reunited with her father. Now that it was a possibility, she looked like a ghoul and he was in jail. Perfect.
While the queen had breakfast, Mary was responsible for cleaning and airing Her Majesty’s private parlor. She was crouched down, laying a new fire, when the door clicked open. Mrs. Shaw, of course, checking up on her again. But when she stood and turned, it wasn’t Mrs. Shaw at all.
“Oh, I say — is that you, Mary? It is Mary, isn’t it?”
Her eyes widened as she stared into the sheepish face of the Prince of Wales. Dropped a reflexive curtsy. Stifled a curse. “Your Highness. I didn’t know you wanted the parlor.”
“I — er — was just on my way to breakfast.”
“In your dressing gown, sir?” She cringed. Too impertinent, by far.
And yet he smiled. “Actually, I was hoping for a breakfast tray.” That was logical enough: if he kept to his room, he needn’t face his mother.
She kept her tone demure. “Very good, sir. I’ll ask Mrs. Shaw straightaway.”
“Actually . . .” His hand fluttered in the air for a moment, arresting her movement, before dropping to his side. “I’d like you to bring it. Yes.”
Her stomach lurched. Trouble snapped at her heels from all directions. After a few moments, she found her voice. “Very good, sir.”
Prince Bertie muttered something and fled.
When Mary relayed the message to Mrs. Shaw, the housekeeper’s eyes widened. “He asked for you particularly?”
“Yes.”
The sharp eyes raked her appearance, lingered suspiciously on her scratched neck. “You’re quite certain.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A pause. “That’s not the way to promotion in this household, my girl; that’s the swiftest path to a home for fallen women.”
Despite Mrs. Shaw’s fears, one didn’t say no to the Prince of Wales — not directly, at least. A quarter of an hour later, Mary was treading noiselessly to the prince’s apartments — a rather glorious term for a bedroom with a small sitting room attached — carrying a tray heavy with breakfast delicacies: cold roasted meats, coddled eggs, deviled kidneys, both bread and butter and toast.
As she’d suspected, the prince was alone in his apartments — a suspicious circumstance, as he was, at least in theory, constantly attended by one or two equerries. He was seated in a wing chair, studying a French newspaper with an expression of great wisdom. As she approached, he glanced up with elaborate surprise. “Oh. That was prompt.”
She dipped her head. “Mrs. Shaw sent a little of everything, sir.”
“Leave that tray for a moment, Mary, and come here.”
She hesitated briefly, then advanced two small paces, keeping herself well out of arm’s reach. “What is it, sir?” She couldn’t decide whether or not to look him straight in the eye. Doing so would be a defiant stance on her part, and one the prince might misconstrue as bold invitation.
“Come and sit by me.” His hand waved vaguely to the place beside his armchair — although there was not, of course, a second chair or stool.
“I’ll fetch a chair, sir.” Mary turned aside, wondering for one crazy moment what her chances were of simply fleeing the room. Would Prince Bertie chase her down the corridor? Invent a story to have her dismissed?
But just as she began to move away, the prince said, “Just — never mind the chair — it’s only — I’d like a word.” His voice sounded small and shuttered. She glanced down: yes, his eyes were suspiciously bright.
She felt a sudden easing in her chest. “Of course, sir.” She returned to stand beside the chair again, wondering if she ought to offer him a handkerchief.
Prince Bertie took several deep breaths, which seemed to keep the tears from rolling. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“What is, sir?”
“Expecting you to be kind to me. But the other day — was it yesterday? I forget — you seemed so sympathetic. As though you understood what it must be like, being me.”
Mary pressed her lips together to keep from making a face. “I don’t know, exactly, but I can imagine, sir.”
He looked up at her through bloodshot eyes. “Then you’ve a devil of an imagination. Most of the time, I can’t even imagine what’s required of me — even as I’m doing it.”
It was that sudden, as though he’d pulled off a mask. Mary stared at the Prince of Wales, her irritation suddenly submerged by a wave of pity. Prince Bertie was still a ridiculous figure, to be sure. His plump cheeks and heavy eyelids gave him the air of a sleepy schoolboy — the class dunce, even. But what else was he, really? Other people’s expectations were rather beside the point just now. With bloodshot eyes and slumped posture, he was really just a very young man in disgrace, suffering under the weight of family disapproval and his own guilty conscience.
She knelt beside the wing chair. “There, there,” she murmured, and as if on cue, the prince’s face crumpled. His eyes welled over, the tears forming fast-running rivers down his cheeks. Mary felt his breath, hot and childlike on her fingers, as he clasped her hand and wept, his whole frame shuddering with the effort.
They remained locked in their awkward clasp — he was hugging her arm like a favorite doll — for only a few minutes, at most. Then, as though recalled to himself, Prince Bertie released her and sat back in his chair, trying to stanch the tears.
Mary fumbled for a handkerchief. She never had a clean handkerchief. But His Highness was already shaking his head and gasping, trying to master himself. His forced smile was grotesque — more of a fright mask than a facial expression. But it was an attempt. He found his own square of beautifully monogrammed silk — so infinitely superior to her own meager scrap of hemmed cotton — and mopped himself. When he blew his nose, he honked so loudly that she blinked.
He winced. “Apologies.” He glanced at her damp arm. “I mean, for everything.”
“Not at all.” It was partly reflex — what else could she say? — but Mary meant it.
He was silent for a moment. “It’s quite pathetic, what I did, isn’t it? Asking you up here for a friendly bit of chat. As though you’ve a choice: my family pays your wages.”
“No,” said Mary quickly. “It needn’t be like that.”
Prince Bertie looked at her through bulging, red-rimmed eyes. “Really?”
She shook her head. “I’m just somebody you happened to run into. I mean, it was quite by chance that I was in the parlor just now. It could have been any other servant.”
He studied the floor, almost shy now.
“Forget that I’m the parlor maid. If you’d like someone to talk to, I’ll listen.” The words felt awkward in her mouth. This was a new role for her, the sympathetic confidante. And she had her own, highly suspect motives for playing it: she was talking to an eyewitness — the most important eyewitness — to Beaulieu-Buckworth’s death.
What might he remember, or reveal by accident? She couldn’t allow herself to hope. But here she was, nonetheless.
The prince’s gaze floated back up to her face. “It’s not very regal of me . . . not manly, either. His Royal Highness the Prince Consort would be scandalized.” Deep sigh. “But then, what’s new about that? Father’s appalled by everything I do.”
Mary stayed silent. This was a strange, one-sided intimacy. He was so unsteady, so childlike — if she pressed him in any way, he’d turn on her a moment later. He still might, if she couldn’t help him.
He slouched deeper in his wing chair. “What is all the staff saying?” He saw her hesitation and forced a playful smile. “I’ll not tell anybody what you say. Promise.”
Mary knew better than to believe that; one well-chosen word from Queen Victoria and the prince would spill the lot. Nevertheless . . . “They’re all a bit confused. They know something serious has occurred, but nobody knows what, exactly.”
“Come on . . . there must be more gossip, even in a household as strict as this.” His smile was more authentic, now that he was on familiar ground: pleading, pestering, teasing. “Don’t you girls talk about us?”
“I couldn’t possibly say, sir, gossip being strictly forbidden.” Her small smile undercut the severity of her words. “But one or two people have mentioned how you’re not generally here during term time.”
“Have they said why?”
She made her eyes wide and round. “They’d never have made so bold about the Prince of Wales, sir.”
He winced. “Ah. Yes. Me and people’s expectations.”
“You don’t sound happy, sir.”
“Would you be, if you were me?” he demanded, voice rising. At her shrinking back, he softened his tone. “Though, of course, you don’t know the truth.” He sighed heavily. “I can’t possibly burden you with that. . . .”
It was such a transparent invitation. “And is it such a heavy burden, sir?”
He snorted. “Oh, aye. Heavier than you could imagine, my dear.”
She remained perfectly still, eyes modestly lowered. If she didn’t break the spell . . . If nobody interrupted them . . .
“What would you say, Mary, if I told you I witnessed something truly terrible on Saturday night? Something so nightmarish I can’t think of anything else, can’t sleep, can’t eat. . . .”
She met his gaze with wide, compassionate eyes. “I’d feel right sorry for you, sir, for I can’t think of a person who deserves such a thing.”
“Really?” His eagerness was difficult to take — she’d never met anyone quite this powerful yet fragile. Or maybe that was the difficulty — he wasn’t actually very powerful at all but was assumed to be so because of his mother. “Because — I probably oughtn’t say — it’s not your concern, and you’re a nice girl . . .”
Time to clinch the confession. But she couldn’t repress a stab of guilt as she said, “You mustn’t say or do anything that troubles your conscience, sir. But I’d count it a privilege to help you, as far as I can.”
It was that easy. Through Mary’s simple, almost entirely selfish illusion of kindness, the Prince of Wales began pouring out his troubles: his sneaking down to London, the ill-advised abandonment of his equerries, the excursion to Limehouse. He was, however, much hazier on the facts and timing of events inside the opium den.
Through the course of his rambling monologue, two things became clear to Mary. The first was that, despite her delicate attempts to sift for facts, the prince’s recollection of events was too muddled to be of use. He’d not been simply evading Queen Victoria’s questions yesterday. The second was his assumption that Lang Jin Hai had to be a murderer simply because he was a foreigner and an Asiatic. Such prejudiced illogic was familiar to Mary, of course. English racial superiority was a common assumption, and she generally encountered it with superficial calm. It was also the reason she never acknowledged her parentage, lest her status as a “dirty half-caste” become the sum of her identity in others’ eyes. This time, however, Prince Bertie’s heedless slurs stung. And even worse, Mary knew why: she already felt protective of Lang Jin Hai, without even being sure of who he was.
Eventually, the prince’s ramblings wound down like a clockwork toy. He stared into the middle distance, limp. His features were puffy and his pallid skin marked by painful-looking red pimples — signs of strain that stirred in Mary equal amounts of distaste and compassion. “You must be half mad with grief, sir,” she said at last.
He seemed not to hear her.
She poured him a cup of coffee, now only lukewarm, and proffered it gently. “Sir?”
He blinked, as though remembering her presence. He drained the cup, expressionless, then held it out for more.
“Would you care for some breakfast, sir? Mrs. Shaw sent deviled kidneys.”
He shook his head, as though sickened. “Take it away.” He was unable to look at her, and Mary thought she understood that, too. In breaking down before her, he’d humiliated himself and betrayed his station. It was no wonder he couldn’t eat before her.
“As you wish, sir.” She packed up the tray and retreated to the kitchens, wondering how Mrs. Shaw would interpret her return. She’d been gone nearly an hour, and here she was with a tray full of uneaten delicacies. Not to mention a Prince of Wales who’d dodged breakfast with his mother. For the first time, Mary thought of the queen with a distinct twinge of pity. Monarch, head of state, empress of the globe — and mother to a weak, tearaway heir with a scandalous murder and a question of justice to address.
Really, a few missing ornaments were the least of Her Majesty’s concerns.
Mrs. Shaw’s estimation of Mary’s moral condition sank even lower before the midafternoon meal. Each day, after the royal family had finished their luncheon, the servants gathered belowstairs for their dinner — a hot, cooked meal that was ample even by palace standards and undreamed of by the urban poor outside its walls. Today, Mary lowered herself into her place at table to find half a dozen others staring at her. She nodded awkwardly at these near strangers. “Hello.”
“Go on, open it!” said another parlor maid, a rosy-cheeked woman called Sadie, with masses of russet hair barely contained by her cap.
At Mary’s place lay a square envelope, larger than her plate and addressed in a flashy, unfamiliar hand.
“Didn’t know you had a sweetheart,” said Amy, from across the table and a few places along. There was a sullen edge to her tone, and Mary noticed that Amy had a much smaller envelope on her own plate. It had already been opened.
“I don’t,” replied Mary. She eyed the packet with suspicion.
“Go on — I’m dying!” squeaked Sadie. “I never seen one that big!”
“Sadie, my sweet,” drawled one of the footmen. “That’s what you said to me last night.”
Sadie sniffed. “Only in your dreams, you nasty little toad.” At this, the other footmen roared with laughter, which was quickly quelled by the head butler.
Mary picked up the valentine, holding it as though it might burst into flames at any moment. She could feel Mrs. Shaw’s dour gaze trained on her face. Was there anything she could do to make herself less conspicuous?
“Go on!” squealed another maid. “It ain’t like to bite you.”
Mary tore open the vast white envelope and, to the squeals of several maids, pulled out the gaudiest valentine she’d ever seen: a garish confection of lace, feathers, ribbon, and paint that unfolded into an elaborate heart shape. At its center was scrawled From your secret admirer.
“Oh, lordy, it’s a stunner,” gasped Sadie, half covering her mouth in reverence.
Amy sniffed. “It must have cost a pretty penny.”
“Penny, my eye!” snorted another. “That’s four bob worth of paper and lace, if ever I seen it.”
Glancing down, Mary noticed a second letter on her dinner plate: a small, very ordinary one that she instantly pocketed. Finally, word from the Agency. Fortunately, the maids’ at
tention seemed fixed on the valentine.
“But who’s your beau?” sighed another. “And how’d you trap a rich one?”
Mary shook her head. “I don’t have one.” Her denial sounded stiff and implausible, even in her own ears. It certainly wasn’t good news, this ostentatious valentine. Angry as he was, James wouldn’t taunt her in this way — drawing unwanted attention to her, encouraging others to ask questions of her. Besides, his interests were already engaged. He’d not wasted much time, going straight from kissing her blind in the study to flirting with that young lady in his drawing room. Mary swallowed hard and met Sadie’s eyes. “I don’t know who it’s from.”
From across the table, Sadie snatched at the valentine and read the message for herself, her eyes growing rounder as she puzzled through the handwriting. “My stars! That’s a flash valentine from someone who’s too shy to sign his name!”
“He must be madly in love with you,” said a thin little maid Mary saw only at mealtimes. “Oh, fancy. It must be lovely.”
“Or maybe four bob’s naught to him.”
This was a juicy subject for the whole table, and while speculation bloomed, Mary caught Mrs. Shaw’s eye on her. This much was certain: the housekeeper had definitely, unofficially, put her on probation. Amy, too, had a dangerous look in her eye — an intimation that her Saint Valentine’s Day was not going according to plan.
“Here, you coy thing.” The woman beside Mary passed her a large earthenware dish of boiled potatoes. “You really got no idea who sent that card?”
“Not the faintest.” Mary took a potato and looked hopefully up the table. There was a meaty hash of some sort and cold poached fowl left over from last night’s dinner abovestairs. A couple of tureens of vegetables. Something that looked like salmon patties. A boiled ham. Slices of bread and butter. Even a quivering aspic which Sadie seemed to favor, judging from the portion she served herself. There was more food than they’d ever consume at this meal. It seemed wrong, at a time of such privation. With last year’s poor harvest and this long, cruel winter, the Cockneys on the streets looked thinner and more haggard than ever.
