because she did not want it to be true, and there was a whisper of fear at the back of her mind. She was not prepared to hear a policeman’s view of it.
“ ’E’s never forgotten ’er birthday before,” she retorted, keeping up with him with an effort. He was unaware that he was walking more rapidly. “Never ever, since ’e were eight years old!” she added.
“Perhaps he’d never been thrown out of a job before,” he pointed out.
“If ’e were thrown out, why didn’t the butler say so?” she countered, still holding on to his arm.
“Probably because household matters like that were none of his business,” he answered. “A good butler wouldn’t discuss domestic unpleasantness with an outsider. Surely you know that even better than I do?” He shot a sideways glance at her, a very slight twist to his lips, as if it were a question. They had argued about the dependence of a servant upon pleasing a master or mistress, and how fragile was the safety of the warmth, the food, the roof over their heads.
“I know wot yer talkin’ about!” Gracie said crossly, pulling her arm away from his. “An’ I’m sick o’ tellin’ yer that it in’t always like that! O’ course there’s bad ’ouses an’ bad people in ’em. But there’s good ’ouses too. Can yer see Mrs. Pitt ever puttin’ me out inter the street ’cos I overslept or was cheeky an’ answered back… or anythin’ else, for that matter?” Her voice rang with challenge. “You daresay as yer could, an’ I’ll make yer wish yer’d never opened yer mouth!”
“Of course not!” he retorted, and stopping abruptly, pulled her over to the side of the pavement near the wall and away from the two men now walking towards them. “But that’s different. If Martin left the Garrick house, then it was for a reason. He was obliged to or he chose to. Either way, it’s not a police matter, unless the Garricks place a charge against him. And I imagine that’s the last thing Tilda wants?”
“A charge o’ wot?” she said furiously. “ ’E in’t done nothin’! ’E’s just disappeared-don’t you listen ter nothin’ I say? Nobody knows where ’e is!”
“No,” he corrected. “Tilda doesn’t know where he is.”
“The butler don’t know neither!” she said exasperatedly. “Nor the bootboy!”
“The butler isn’t telling Tilda, and why on earth should the bootboy know?” he said reasonably.
She was beginning to feel a kind of desperation. She did not want to quarrel with Tellman but she was on the brink of it and could not help herself. They were on the corner of the main thoroughfare now and the noise in the street rumbled past them, wheels, hooves, voices. People passed back and forth, one man so close as to brush Gracie’s back. Tilda’s fear had caught hold of her and she was losing her ability to think without panic overtaking her.
“ ’Cos bootboys see an’ ’ear lots o’ things!” she snapped at him. “Don’t yer learn nothin’ questionin’ people? You bin on crimes in big ’ouses often enough! Yer’ve listened ter Mr. Pitt, ’aven’t yer? Does ’e ever ignore people just ’cos they work in the scullery or the pantry? People notice things, yer know; they got eyes an’ ears!”
He kept his patience with an effort she could see even in the lamplight, and she knew he did it only because he cared for her. Somehow that made it more annoying because it was a moral pressure, a kind of obligation to respect him when inside she was bursting to shout.
“I know that, Gracie,” he said levelly. “I’ve questioned plenty of servants myself. And the fact that the bootboy doesn’t know there is anything wrong is very good evidence that there probably isn’t. Martin might have been dismissed and left, and if that is so, maybe he didn’t want his sister to hear about it until he found another place.” He sounded eminently reasonable. “He’s trying not to worry her… or perhaps he’s ashamed? Maybe he was dismissed for something embarrassing, some kind of mistake. It would be only natural he wouldn’t want his family to know about it.”
“Then why don’t ’e send ’er a card or a letter for ’er birthday from somewhere else?” she challenged, pulling farther away from him and staring up into his eyes. “ ’E din’t do that, so she’s gonna worry twice as much!”
“If he lost his position, and his bed and board at the same time,” he replied, keeping his voice unnaturally calm, “then I daresay he had more pressing things on his mind, like where to sleep and what to eat! He wouldn’t have remembered what day it was.”
“Then if ’e’s in that much trouble she’s right ter be worried-in’t she?” she said triumphantly.
Tellman let out his breath in a long sigh. “Worried, yes, but calling in the police, definitely not.”
Gracie clenched her fists by her sides in an effort to hang on to the last shred of her temper. “She in’t callin’ in the police, Samuel! She told me, an’ I’m askin’ you. You in’t police, yer me friend. Leastways, I thought yer was. I’m askin’ yer ’elp, not tryin’ ter start a case.”
“What do you expect me to do?” His voice rose in indignation at the sheer unreasonableness of it.
She bit back her response with a mighty effort and forced herself to smile at him with the utmost sweetness. “Thank yer,” she said charmingly. “I knew yer’d ’elp, when yer understood. Yer could start by askin’ Mr. Garrick ’isself where Martin is. Yer don’t ’ave ter say why, o’ course. Mebbe ’e were a witness?”
“To what?” His eyebrows shot up in disbelief.
She ignored it. “I dunno! Think o’ summink!”
“I can’t use police authority to go and question someone over something I invented!” He looked offended, as if his morality had been insulted.
“Oh, don’ be so… so…” She was almost lost for words. She loved him as he was, stiff, awkward, full of indignation, covering his compassion with regulations and habit, the rigidity he had been taught, but sometimes he infuriated her beyond endurance, and this was one of those times. “Can’t yer see beyond the end o’ yer nose?” she demanded. “Sometimes I think yer brain is shut inside yer book o’ rules! Can’t yer see that lives, feelin’s, wot’s inside people’s wot matters?” She drew in breath and went on. “People are ’eart an’ blood, an’… an’ mistakes an’ things. An’ dreams! Tilda needs ter find wot ’appened to ’im… an’ that’s real!”
His face hardened. He clung on to what he understood. “If you break the rules, in the end they’ll break you,” he said stubbornly, and in that instant she knew she had lost him. He had made a statement he could not go back on. He was right as he saw it, and she understood more than she could now admit. She had been unfair, forgetting he was working for Wetron now, not Pitt, and there would be no latitude granted him for anything. He had already risked his job once to save her and Charlotte and the children, and done it without thought of himself. Another day, when she was not so angry, and when it would not look like either apology or trying to win him back, she would tell him so. Just at the moment her thoughts were centered on Tilda and what had happened to her brother.
“Well, if yer won’t ’elp ’er, I’ll ’ave ter do it misself!” she said at last, swinging around to move a step away from him. She could not think of anything cutting and final to say, which was very frustrating. All she could do was stand and stare for a moment, as if she were about to deliver the final blow, then let out a sigh and leave.
“No, you won’t!” Tellman said abruptly. “You’ll do nothing of the sort!”
She spun around to face him again. “Don’t you tell me wot ter do, Samuel Tellman! I’ll do wot I ’ave ter, an’ you don’t ’ave nothin’ ter say about it!” she shouted, but she felt so much better that he had responded.
“Gracie!” He took a long stride after her as if he would reach out and grasp her arm.
She shrugged exaggeratedly and did a little skip to elude him, and then walked as quickly as she could without looking back, mostly because she wanted to think he was staring after her, perhaps even following her, and she did not want to find out that he was not.
When she reached Keppel Street and went in through the scullery to the kitchen, she was still just clinging on to anger, but unhappiness had almost drowned it out. She had not handled the encounter with Tellman well. Even if she could not have persuaded him to investigate Martin Garvie’s disappearance, and just possibly he had something of an honest reason for not doing so, at least she could have behaved so that they parted friends. Now she had no idea how to retrace it so she could speak openly to him next time they met. It was amazing how sharply that hurt her. She had not expected it to matter as deeply as it did. One day quite soon she was going to have to face the fact that she cared for him very much.
Fortunately there was no one else in the kitchen, so she could blow her nose and wash her face quickly, and then try to look as if nothing were wrong. She had the kettle on when Charlotte came in.
“Would yer like a cup o’ tea?” she asked almost cheerfully.
“Yes, please,” Charlotte accepted, in spite of the fact that it was only half past six. She sat down at the table and made herself comfortable. “What’s wrong?” she asked, waiting motionlessly as if demanding an answer.
Gracie hesitated for a moment, debating whether to say that there was nothing wrong or to tell her at least part of it-the bit about Martin Garvie. She had not realized that Charlotte could read her so well. That too was a little disconcerting. And yet they had known each other for so long that if Charlotte had not ever hurt her, it would mean she did not care, and that would have been worse.
