"So we were ushered through the town to the house of the Ames family and informed, in one of Mrs. Riggs's clipped speeches, that the lady was suffering from an attack of nerves and would see us at teatime but not before.
"Hazel kept tight hold of a fold of my skirt drapery as we went into a suite clearly furnished for a lady of at least twice her years. She asked, in the very low, trembling voice she had lost during the time spent in my company, where I was to stay.
"Riggs sniffed and looked down a thin sliver of nose that bore a hairy nob on one side, answering that Lady Ames would decide that upon seeing me. Nor was she quite out of the room before Hazel, clinging still to me, began to cry. Between sobs she said she did not like this place and would I not please take her home again.
"'I—I know that Mama is gone,' she whimpered. 'But Papa would not make me stay where I was afraid. You know he would not, dear Hester!'
"'You are tired, cold, and hungry,' I said, trying to reassure her. Perhaps I could have made my own voice more emphatic had I not inwardly been daunted by our reception, too. Stooping, I put my arms about her.
"'Come. Come now,' snapped Riggs a half hour later when I had gotten Hazel calm and had suggested to her this was something of an adventure if she would only look upon it as such. Riggs stretched her long neck like a crow I had once seen harassing a cardinal, peering at us both as if we were succulent morsels tamely awaiting attack. "Best you get young miss here ready for tea. Her Ladyship always wants what she wants to be delivered as soon as she orders.'
"I saw an expression of obstinacy begin to stiffen Hazel's small face and I hastened to shut the door through which Riggs had disappeared. Then I turned to my charge with the best advice I could at the moment summon.
"'Come, Hazel, you must not let your grandmother think that you have in the least taken a dislike to your situation here. Remember you are the daughter of a brave soldier.
Stand up straight, and report as would one of the scouts of your father—answer fully any questions that your grandmother may ask.'
"She stood docilely enough while I combed her long, strikingly pale, silver curls, and allowed me to bring her a pair of soft slippers to change for her damp boots. The dismal color of her mourning dress threw her hair and the sun-creamed hue of her skin into almost startling relief. Looking at her with approval and, yes, love, I was sure she would find a place in Lady Ames's life—and, God willing, her heart.
"Our introduction to Lady Ames was a complete failure. Me she ignored after a nod of the head that dispatched me to a stiff-backed chair at the far end of her very feminine room, where stout, hard cushions, worked in silk flowers of quite violent colors, could make even a most comfortable chair a seat of growing torment.
"She pounced upon poor Hazel with a series of questions—several of which suggested to me that she strove to discover some dispute or dislike between the child's parents! Her son had apparently married a countrywoman of mine and Lady Ames far from liked that. There was plainly an abundance of spite in her voice and no grandmother's kindness at all.
"Hazel was again on the verge of crying. I could stand it no longer and, quite forgetting my own lowly place in the eyes of this household, I came forward hastily and waited for a chance to speak.
" 'My lady, Hazel is very tired and her breakfast was only milk and bread. Could you not wait until she is rested to question her about family affairs?'
"Lady Ames leaned forward. Her naturally high-colored countenance took on a quite alarming shade of red and her eyes appeared to protrude from their cushions of flesh in order to favor me with a most daunting inspection.
"'Very well.' She drawled her words, but there was a bite in her tone, which was now an octave higher than the one that had greeted us. 'Riggs!' She did not reach for the small silver bell buried in the litter of things on the table. But Martha Riggs appeared almost instantly in the doorway, as if she were indeed some eerie creature able to project her person from one room to another through the very walls.
‘You, young person,' Lady Ames continued, ‘I wish to speak with you now. Hazel, you are dismissed—for the present.' Then she turned as forceful a look of judgment upon Hazel, but one of a slightly different kind.
‘The little girl had already raised one real protest as Riggs propelled her toward the door. I trusted that my own gaze was as threatening to the maid as the one her mistress had directed toward me.
‘Hazel, my dear.' I hastened to soothe the rising fears of my late charge. ‘I shall come to you soon.'
‘Hazel—what an odd name! What is your second name?' Lady Ames's voice had fallen into its usual screech.
Hazel jerked free of Riggs's hold on her shoulder. She made a graceful little curtsy she must have learned in her mother's drawing room and answered with the singsong voice of one uttering a well-drilled ritual.
‘I am Hazel Renee Ames.'
‘Renee?' For the second time a wrinkle of distaste added to Lady Ames's collection of skin folds. 'That name is altogether unsuitable, child. Thus we must call you Hazel after all. Very well, go with Riggs now and she will serve you tea.'
‘I forced a nod and a smile, so Hazel went off reluctantly with the stone-faced Riggs. Lady Ames was already addressing questions to me."
‘You call yourself Hester Lane—'
‘I do not call myself anything, Your Ladyship. Hester Lane is the name I have carried from my birth.'
Her pudgy hands, aglitter with rings, pawed through the general mess on the table as she leaned forward among her nest of pillows, her lace-fronted morning gown actually threatening to split in some important places. Now she came up with a letter, the bold handwriting on the envelope easy enough to see. It had come from Major Ames.
"'My son says'—she smoothed out the crinkled paper— 'that your father was a scholar and a distinguished historian writing a book about those cruel Indians. Also, you have been his amanuensis and acquitted yourself well in that situation.'
"She paused to sweep me from head to foot with a bold stare that I was sure she would never use with one she considered her social equal. 'He also has written that you are a lady of family.'
"'I was my father's researcher and assistant for six years— from the time I completed my formal education.' I kept my voice carefully neutral.
"Now she dropped the letter into her lap. 'Latin—pauhg! Philosophy, history—all too heady and severe for any weak female mind to comprehend. You do speak French?' she asked sharply in that language but with an accent so twisted that I could barely understand her.
"I replied in the same language that I could. Also, that I could teach German if that would be required of me.
"Her pop eyes were slitted as she said then, not in a fumbly foreign tongue, but in English, 'Can you teach tabor work, netting? Do you know perfectly the rules of society and all concerning those families that are classed so? Can you dance, play the piano, draw, teach watercolor?'
"To this list of talents I was forced to answer no, and she gave a sigh that was one of relief as she settled back again among her cushions. 'You are hardly an acceptable governess, Miss Lane.'
"If Lady Ames had expected some plea from me (in spite of that touch of fear), she was disappointed.
"'You may stay the week,'" I had jotted in my ledger— her words were not the kind that were easily forgotten.
"The Brougher girls are to be sent to a school in Switzerland. Luckily I foresaw something of this present situation and have approached Miss Cantry, their present governess. But, of course, I shall provide for you."'
Hester scowled, and flipped the next three pages over together.
"The Miss Cantry of Lady Ames's choice did not appear within the week as looked for. Thus I was given respite for another week, during which I strove to prepare Hazel, as best I could, for her place in life. She was sent for several times, to accompany Lady Ames on her daily ride in the park, returning each time with either a scowl on her face or reddened eyes that were the result of an outburs
t of tears.
"She did not confide in me, and I did not ask any questions. Though once she inquired if it were true that 'ladies' were wrong in throwing a penny to the boy who swept the crossing outside.
"Knowing her grandmother would strongly disapprove, but not wishing to pass judgment upon her selfish snobbery, I thought it best to keep silent.
"'You cannot tell me!' Hazel crossed the room and gave a vigorous tug to the bell ribbon. Then she took her small net purse to the table and turned it upside down, allowing its contents, including several shilling pieces, to spin across the table's crimson velvet cover. Swiftly she separated them.
"The door opened for the young kitchen maid, Kitty, with my tea, unappetizing hunks of bread spread with dubious butter, and a pot already half chilled because of the long walk the bearer had had, up from the kitchen. But Kitty winked at me as she set down the tray and whisked off the cover. The chunks of bread were enriched by a delectable-looking pair of muffins. She grinned.
'Them's prime, miss. Cook put aside a basket of them for her friend the constable. It's Old Riggs with her smarmy orders as gits you such rotten stuff! She's—'
'Miller, what are you doing here?' Miss Riggs's voice came from the hall outside so often I had reason to believe she listened whenever Hazel and I were together. But it was Hazel who answered her now.
'Kitty is going to run an errand for me, Riggs!' The beginning of hauteur touched her—a legacy from her grandmother. It made the woman stare at her somewhat bemused. She had certainly never seen that aspect of my charge before.
"'One of the footmen,' said Riggs, who might have been rocked for an instant but was now steady once more, 'would be suitable for messages, Miss Hazel, and my lady would want to know all about it.'
Hazel snatched up the unwholesome-looking plate of bread chunks and thrust it at Kitty. 'Give this to the little boy—the one at the street corner. I think he must be very hungry.'
Kitty bobbed a curtsy. 'Yes, miss.'
She fled the room while Riggs walked quickly to the window. But the gathering darkness did not yet have the street lamp to cut it.
'Miss Hazel, 'tis my bonded duty to tell Her Ladyship of this—' She drew such a deep breath that I was sure it reached clear to the shoes hidden beneath her skirts.
'Yes, Riggs.' Hazel nodded. 'The vicar spoke Sunday about how treasure came from feeding the poor and hungry people with bread and fishes. Only I did not have any fish.'
Riggs was indeed shaken and only muttered something inaudible as she went out the door. Hazel turned to me, and there was a faint flush in her cheeks and her eyes were wide and sparkling. 'Hester, you will do it for me, won't you?' She shoved her shilling piece in my direction.
I was already reaching for my waterproof cape and the bonnet that was supposed to possess the same properties. It was in this manner I met Freddy, a very dirty urchin in a patched coat that Hazel had described to me. He was chewing on one of the hunks of bread as if he feared it would be snatched away from him, and a lump just above the length of rope that held his coat together made me surmise that he was saving more than half the bounty. He looked at me with red-rimmed eyes that held the impression of sly wariness.
'Whot yuh wants, missie?' He jerked his head to indicate the envelope into which I had inserted and sealed Hazel's charity. 'Message run? Fred's yur boy, he is.'
He held out his hand, having crushed all the rest of the bread into his mouth, which gave him a very stuffed look. I released the envelope to the pull he gave as soon as he got his filthy fingers on it.
'No message, Fred—just a gift from a little girl who wishes you well.'
He clutched the envelope tightly and looked as if he had no belief that anything good might really happen to him. Then he turned and ran out into the fog, lost from sight in seconds.
Again Miss Cantry did not appear and I was given respite for another seven days.
My time was up yesterday—
And now here she was, on her own.
Hester leaned back a little. Those fingers of fog that she had earlier imagined reaching for her from the corners of the room were growing longer and more menacing. It was one thing to be prepared to earn one's living and then always being assured in some fashion of the future, and another to possess four shillings and sixpence in an otherwise empty purse. What did those noble, familyless heroines do in books? Did they have jewels to pawn or something of that sort? Her rent was paid until a week from tomorrow and bread and tea could fill a stomach. What had Freddy done with all that wealth Hazel showered upon him? He'd never come back to that corner as a sweeper again.
Hester drew her shawl more tightly about her. Dragged along with its fringe across the bed were her two letters. This afternoon—yes, this very afternoon—she could send both of her answers out into the world.
But would the world reply?
Chapter 2
It was a case of hate at first sight.
That, at least, was what Inspector Newcomen told himself as he perched uneasily on the edge of his chair, in Mr. Utterson's outer office.
First sight, but not first meeting. His previous dealings with Utterson had produced a somewhat disagreeable impression of the lean, unsmiling, elderly solicitor, but at the time he had seen him as an ally in a common cause.
Utterson was the friend as well as the legal counselor for Henry Jekyll, M.D., and Inspector Newcomen, the officer assigned to investigate certain events surrounding Dr. Jekyll's mysterious disappearance.
It was last March that Utterson had come forward with the story of how he and Dr. Jekyll's butler, Poole, found the body in Dr. Jekyll's cabinet—the office maintained at his home. As a matter of fact, Newcomen himself was involved from the very start. He examined the office, questioned the servants, and viewed the corpse discovered there. It was Utterson himself who corroborated statements from Jekyll's household staff and personal friends, attesting that the deceased was one Edward Hyde.
There was no doubt whatsoever that Hyde had met death by his own hands, through the ingestion of prussic acid, though the reasons for his apparent suicide were never clarified—at least not by the enigmatic Mr. Utterson, who said he had little personal contact with Dr. Jekyll's unfortunate friend. But last October, when Sir Danvers Carew was clubbed to death by a man identified as Edward Hyde, it was Utterson who conducted the inspector to Hyde's vacated lodgings, though he claimed no knowledge of the man himself. Nor did anyone else appear to know much about the dwarfed and almost apishly deformed man who had seemingly been an intimate of Dr. Jekyll's for several years.
It was then that Inspector Newcomen's reservations about the solicitor took form. Surely he must have known more about the relationship than he was willing to volunteer. After his suicide was officially established Hyde was interred in a pauper's grave. No ceremony was performed and no mourners were in attendance. It appeared that the late Edward Hyde had neither family nor friends. Except, of course, for Dr. Jekyll, who remained absent on that occasion.
Inspector Newcomen scowled and stirred impatiently in his chair. Confound Utterson for keeping him waiting like this! Months had passed since the death of Hyde and the disappearance of Jekyll, and during all that time Utterson had played a waiting game. When questioned about some of the strange apparatus and peculiar chemicals discovered in Jekyll's laboratory, Utterson protested he knew nothing of them. When confronted with the fact that Edward Hyde possessed his own key to Dr. Jekyll's private quarters and apparently came and went as he chose at all hours of the day or night, Utterson kept mum.
It was indeed a waiting game, and no mistake. But then through his years in the service of the law, Inspector New-comen had come to despise all men of the law; barristers, solicitors, attorneys, magistrates, and judges; the whole kit and caboodle infesting Temple Bar, cluttering the courts as they pranced about in their absurd getups. Silly wigs and stupid gowns belonged at masked balls rather than in a court of law. As for the pomp and ceremony—from "Hear ye," to "All rise," to "If
it please Your Honor"—Newcomen regarded it as sheer poppycock. All of it was game-playing, not to serve justice but to obstruct it.
That Utterson was obstructing justice he had no doubt; not after a passage of long months since Henry Jekyll's disappearance. And it was high time to put paid to the matter once and for all.
"Mr. Utterson will see you now."
The glorious tidings issued from the lips of the solicitor's chief clerk, one Robert Guest, who emerged from the inner sanctum to address the police officer.
Newcomen lost no time in acceding to the invitation. As he entered the private office Mr. Utterson elevated himself from behind his desk, greeting his visitor in a manner more curtly than courtly. If, indeed, "Inspector?" could be construed as a greeting. His tone carried with it the unspoken but unmistakable implication that Newcomen's very presence was a sore trial to his patience.
And trial it very well may be, the Inspector told himself. Complete with judge, jury, and sentence, unless you come up with some proper testimony.
"Please be seated." With a diffident gesture Utterson indicated the vacant chair placed near the corner of his desk. As Newcomen moved to occupy it the solicitor uttered a dry cough. "To what might I owe the pleasure of this visit?" he inquired.
"A matter of business," Newcomen replied. "There are questions that require immediate answers."
The solicitor seated himself behind his desk. "Please be assured that I shall do my best to provide them," he said. "Granted, of course, that such answers are known to me." Inspector Newcomen nodded. "Then I propose we come to the point," the lawyer said.