Joshua Walden’s home in Hans Town proved to be a modest house of red brick, with neatly painted white shutters, a shiny black door, and window boxes filled with well-tended masses of dianthus and saxifrage.
A tall, almost cadaverously thin man in his late forties or early fifties with a thick head of graying brown hair, he received them in a plainly furnished parlor. “I am honored by this visit, Hero Jarvis,” he said, inviting them to sit. “Honored. I read thine article on the high rate of mortality amongst children sold by the parish as climbing boys to chimney sweeps. Fascinating work.”
“Why, thank you,” said Miss Jarvis, giving the Quaker a smile so wide it made Sebastian blink. “Although I must confess the methodology used was not my own.”
From his seat beside the empty hearth, Sebastian listened, bemused, while Miss Jarvis worked, deliberately and adroitly, to insinuate herself in their host’s good graces. The two crusaders rattled on at length about everything from laying-in hospitals to poor laws. Only gradually did she bring the conversation around, artfully, to the reason for their visit.
“I understand you were at the Magdalene House the night Rose Jones sought refuge there,” she said.
“Yes. It was the third night.”
“The third night?” said Sebastian.
Walden smiled. “What thou would call Wednesday. I remember it because the weather was dreadful—the rain was coming down in sheets, and it was quite cold. We haven’t been having much of a spring, have we? The poor women were soaked through and dangerously chilled.”
Sebastian sat forward. “Women?”
“Yes. There were two of them. I don’t recall the other one’s name. Helen, or Hannah . . . something like that. She didn’t stay long, I’m afraid. Our rules are not harsh but they are firm. We’ve discovered that some of the women who come to us don’t really wish to leave the life. I’m afraid Helen, or Hannah, or whoever she was, fell into that category. She was frightened the night she came, but that soon wore off. She left after only a day or two.”
Miss Jarvis nodded, neither embarrassed nor shocked by the nature of the conversation. “You say she was frightened?”
“Oh, yes. They both were. It’s not unusual. Many of the women who come to us are fleeing dreadful situations—virtual slavery, you know. The brutes who keep them have either forced them to sign papers the poor simpletons believe are binding, or have contrived to reduce them to a state of hopeless indebtedness, even renting them the very clothes on their backs so that by fleeing they open themselves up to charges of theft.”
“Did she give you any idea what kind of situation she’d fled?” Sebastian asked.
“We generally don’t inquire too closely into such details. But from one or two things Hannah—yes, that was the other girl’s name. Hannah, not Helen. At any rate, from one or two things she let slip, Margaret Crowley received the impression the women had been at a residential brothel.” He paused, his thin chest rising on a sigh. “Margaret Crowley was the matron at the Magdalene House, you know.”
Miss Jarvis leaned forward to pat his hand, where it lay on the chair’s arm. “Yes. I’m so sorry.”
“Any idea where the brothel may have been located?” Sebastian asked.
Walden cleared his throat. “The one girl—Hannah—was very talkative. I believe she mentioned Portman Square.”
Sebastian nodded. Closed, stay-in brothels were rare in London. More common were lodging-house brothels, where the girls were—nominally, at least—independent. Picking up their customers from the pleasure gardens or the theater or even the streets of the city, they then brought them back to the lodging house where they kept a room. Other girls took their men to “accommodation houses” where they didn’t actually live; they simply hired one of its rooms for the requisite number of hours—or minutes. Others made use of the numerous chop houses, cigar rooms, and coffeehouses that also had bedrooms available for use—their exclusively male clientele making them good hunting grounds, as well.
“I’m afraid there’s really not much else I can tell you about Rose Jones,” Walden was saying. “Many of the girls chafe at the restrictions we impose upon them, but Rose never did. She never left the house.”
“Because she was still afraid?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Did she ever say anything about her life before she . . .” Miss Jarvis hesitated.
Walden shook his head. “No. Although it was obvious she was gently born. We don’t often see women quite like her. For some reason, many of the women who come to us claim to be clergymen’s daughters, although I suspect few actually are. But I’ve no doubt Rose was very wellborn. Very wellborn indeed.” He looked from Miss Jarvis to Sebastian. “This has something to do with the fire, doesn’t it? Dost thou think it’s possible the fire was not an accident?”
“I think so, yes.”
Joshua Walden nodded, his lips pressed together tightly.
It was when he was escorting them to the door that he said suddenly, “There is one more thing that might help. We had a young girl in the house who called herself Rachel. I don’t think she could have been more than thirteen—a lovely fair-haired child. One evening—just by chance—I overheard Rose say to the child, ‘I was once called Rachel.’ It stuck in my head because Rachel laughed merrily and said, ‘I was once called Rose.’ ”
He smiled gently at the memory, the smile rapidly fading. “But it may mean nothing. Some girls change their names frequently.”
“Perhaps,” said Sebastian, pausing in the Quaker’s simple entrance hall. “But it could also be Rose’s real name. Thank you.”
“That was fortuitous,” said Miss Jarvis as Sebastian handed her up into her waiting carriage. “I hadn’t expected to learn so much.”
“You think we learned a great deal, do you?”
