She found herself blushing; the color was hot in her cheeks. She wanted to behave with lightness, as if his offer meant nothing unusual, and she was not managing it. She was awkward again.
“Yeah…” she said, trying to be casual, and catching her breath in a hiccup. She was going to have to make a big decision soon, and she was not ready for it. She had known for ages how he felt. She should have made up her mind by now. “Yeah. I like music.” What would she wear? It must be good enough. She wanted him to think she was pretty, but she was also afraid of it. What if he got emotional, and she did not know how to handle it? Perhaps she should have said no, kept it to business.
“Good.” He gave her no time to change her mind. Had he seen the indecision in her face?
“Well…” she began.
“Seven o’clock,” he went on too quickly. “We’ll have something to eat, and I’ll tell you what I’ve found, and we can go to the music hall.” He stood up, as if he felt self-conscious and wanted to escape before he did something that made him feel even more foolish.
She stood up too, knocking against the table. Thank heaven there was nothing on it to spill; the motion just rattled the glasses a little.
He waited for her to go ahead of him, and followed her out into the street. It was harder to speak there. A dray with a load of barrels was backing awkwardly around the corner into the inn yard, the driver holding the lead horse’s bridle and calling out orders. Another man balanced half a dozen kegs on a trolley as he wheeled them across the cobbles, rattling at every step. Traffic clattered past in the roadway, hooves loud, harness jingling.
Gracie was glad of it, and looking quickly at Tellman’s face, she thought he was too. Perhaps he would get cold feet and say nothing for ages? That would give her longer to think. About what? She would say yes. It was just how she would say it that was still to be considered. Change was frightening. She had been with the Pitts since she had been thirteen. She couldn’t leave them.
Tellman was saying something, shouting above the noise.
“Yeah!” she agreed, nodding. “I’ll be ’ere at seven, day arter termorrer. You find out wot ’appened ter Martin Garvie. ’Bye.” And without waiting for him to say anything else she smiled brilliantly and turned on her heel.
TWO EVENINGS LATER they met at the same table in the corner of the public house. Tellman was dressed in a plain dark jacket and his white shirt looked even stiffer-collared than usual. Gracie had put on her best blue dress and bonnet, and allowed her hair to be less tightly scraped back than usual, but that was all the concession she would make to an extraordinary occasion. However, as soon as she saw Tellman’s face, preoccupation with herself vanished.
“Wot?” she said urgently, as soon as they were seated and their order given. “Wot is it, Samuel?” She was not even aware of using his name.
He leaned forward. “Plenty of people saw Stephen Garrick leave his house, and they described the man who went with him-fair-haired, in his twenties, pleasant face. From what they say, he was a servant, almost certainly a valet, but there were only two small cases, no trunks or boxes. Mr. Garrick was ill. He had to be half carried out from the house and it took two men to help him into the carriage, but it was his own carriage, not an ambulance, and driven by the household coachman.”
“ ’Oo said?” she asked quickly.
“Lamplighter,” he replied. “Just beginning.”
“About six in the evening?” She was surprised. “In’t that a funny time ter start on a journey ter France? Is it summink ter do wi’ tides, or the like? Where’d ’e go from? London docks?”
“Morning,” he replied. “Putting the lamps out, not lighting them. But that’s the funny thing. I checked all sailings from the London docks that day, and they weren’t on anything to France, not Mr. Garrick alone, nor with anyone else.”
Their order arrived, a very good early supper of winkles and bread and butter, and there would be apple pie afterwards. Tellman thanked the serving girl and pronounced the meal excellent. Gracie picked up the long pin for digging out the flesh and held it up in her hand. “Mebbe they went from Dover? People do, don’t they?”
“Yes. But I tried the station for the train, and the porter who’d been on the Dover platform said that, to the best of his recollection, there was no one with anything like that description all day. No invalid, no one that needed helping of any kind, except with heavy baggage.”
She was puzzled. “So they din’t go from London, an’ they din’t go from Dover. Where else is there?”
“Well, they could have gone anywhere else, like somewhere on the Continent that wasn’t France, or anywhere in England-or Scotland, for that matter,” he replied. “Except that if Stephen Garrick has poor health, and the English climate is too harsh for him, he’d hardly go to spend the winter in Scotland.” He discarded his last winkle shell and finished his bread and butter.
She was even more puzzled. “But Lady Vespasia was very plain that that was wot Mr. Garrick said,” she argued. “An’ why would ’e lie to ’er? Rich folk often go away fer their ’ealth.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It doesn’t make sense. But wherever they went, it wasn’t straight to a ship and across to France.” He looked intensely serious. “You were right to be worried, Gracie. When people lie and you can’t see the reason, it usually means that the reason is even worse than you thought.” He sat silent for a moment, his face puckered with concern.
“Wot?” she urged.
He looked up at her. “If they weren’t going to catch a train, or a boat, why go at that time in the morning? They must have got up at five, when it was still dark.”
A kind of heaviness settled inside her. “ ’Cos they didn’t wanter be seen,” she replied. Suddenly matters of who loved whom and what to say or do about it had no urgency at all. She looked at him without any pretense. “Samuel, we gotta find out, ’cos if someone like old Mr. Garrick is tellin’ lies, even ter ’is own ’ouse’old, an’ Tilda don’t know where her brother is, then the answer in’t anythin’ good.”
He did not argue. “Trouble is, we’ve got no crime that we know of,” he said grimly. “And Mr. Pitt’s in Egypt, so we can’t even ask his help.”
“Then we gotta do it ourselves,” she said very quietly. “I don’t like that, Samuel. I wish as we din’t.”
He put out his hand instinctively and let it rest very gently over hers, covering it completely. “So do I, but we’ve got no choice. We wouldn’t be happy just forgetting about it. Tomorrow we’ll speak to Tilda again and get her to tell us everything Martin ever said about the Garricks. We’ve got to know more. As it is, we’ve got nothing to follow up.”
“I’ll fetch ’er when she does ’er errands, about ’alf past nine.” She nodded. “But she never told me wot Martin said before, so mebbe ’e didn’t say nothin’ about the Garricks. Wot are we gonna do then?”
“Go back and talk to the parlor maid at the Garrick house, who knew him fairly well,” he replied. “But that would be harder. If there is anything wrong, she won’t be able to speak freely while she’s there, and she’ll be afraid for losing her position.” He tried very hard to keep his feelings about that out of his face, and failed. “Do you want some apple pie?” he asked instead.
“Yeah… please.” The winkles had been delicious, but they were not very filling, and there is nothing quite like really good short-crust pastry and firm, tart apples, with cream on thick enough to stand a spoon up in.
When they had finished, Tellman paid and they left. Out in the cool evening, they walked side by side along the crowded footpath half a mile or so to the entrance of the music hall. There were scores of people, much like themselves, some of them more showily dressed, but most arm in arm, men strutting a little, girls laughing and swishing skirts. They pressed close together, pushing each other in excitement to get inside.
A hurdy-gurdy man played a popular air, and one or two people joined in singing with it. Hansoms stopped and more people added to the crowd. Peddlers sold sweets, drinks, hot pies, flowers and trinkets.
Gracie had to cling to Tellman’s arm not to be carried away by the press of bodies all pushing and shoving in slightly different ways. The noise of voices raised in excitement was terrific and she kept getting bumped and her feet trodden on.
Eventually they were inside. Tellman had bought tickets for seats nicely near the front of the stalls. They were going to sit down where they could see and hear properly. She had never done that before. On the few occasions she had been, she had stood at the very back, barely able to see anything at all. This was marvelous. She ought to be thinking about Martin Garvie and poor Tilda-and how on earth they were going to find out what had happened, even if they were too late to help. But the lights and the buzz of excitement, and the certainty settling warm and comfortable inside her that this was not just a single event, but the beginning of something permanent, drove
