'Tell me about her,' I said suddenly. 'Tell me what she was like when she was young, how she grew, what she learned. Tell me everything.'
He looked surprised, then reluctant, as though he did not want to sift through memories that were now painful. After a moment, however, he sank to the wing chair, and began to tell me. He spoke haltingly, sometimes groping for the words in English, but as he spun the narrative, my daughter came alive for me.
Auberge described how he'd had difficulty adjusting to living with a small girl in his house, how she'd wanted to see everything and explore everything and overturn everything. She'd taken eagerly to riding, with Auberge leading the little horse, she perched on a tiny saddle. Gabriella had grown swiftly, her pudgy arms and legs lengthening to coltish limbs, as she'd run and played and rode across the hills of their home in provincial France.
She had great affection for her younger brothers and sisters and helped her mother look after them all. She was a quick learner, reading both French and English and writing in a good hand before she'd been six years old. She'd had lessons with her brothers under their tutor and declared she wanted to be a teacher or a governess. Everyone had laughed, because of course, she would marry well and hire governesses of her own. She'd blossomed into a young woman and had already caught the attention of a few young gentlemen, although she had not yet made her debut.
I listened intently, picturing what Auberge told me, my chest tight with envy. I laughed when he described how Gabriella had told the parish priest that she refused to say rosaries because she wanted to worship the English God, like her mother. Though Gabriella had grown up far from me, some of her antics put me in mind of myself as a child. I smiled with pride at the story of her donning on her brother's clothes at age twelve and climbing a fence to steal apples.
'She is a Lacey,' I said. 'Carlotta must grind her teeth over it.'
Auberge nodded. 'She is apt to blame Gabriella's wilder escapades on you. In my hearing only, of course.'
Of course. I imagined that Carlotta had never wanted to tell Gabriella of her true origins, because the girl might have wanted to rush off to England to find me. Carlotta, on the other hand, obviously wanted nothing to do with me.
Once more, in the continuing litany in my head, I prayed to God that Gabriella was alive and well.
Bartholomew marched upstairs to interrupt our reminiscences. 'Mr. Grenville has arrived, sir.'
I heard his step, and then Grenville, resplendent in afternoon riding clothes, appeared. He hesitated at the sight of Auberge, but nodded cordially. 'Major.'
Auberge seemed to sense his wariness. He rose. 'Mr. Grenville. I will go.'
'No need,' Grenville said. 'I have come to continue assisting you. Jackson, too, is keen to have another go.'
I got to my feet. 'I am grateful. There was no need to come yourself.'
'There was need.' Grenville shifted. 'Like to see a thing through, and all that.'
I shrugged as though I did not care one way or another. 'I was about to go down to the Strand, to the place Mary was found, and look near there. I know Denis's men and Pomeroy's have scoured the place, but I want to look again. Whoever carried the body to Bottle Bill's would not have wanted to take it far.'
'Excellent. I will have Jackson drive you.'
'That is not necessary, but good of you to offer. Perhaps you and he can join Colonel Brandon, who has started searching points farther east, into the City and beyond.'
'Dash it, Lacey.' Grenville shifted again, his eyes dark and troubled. 'I am trying to eat humble pie. I am not good at it, never having had to do it before.'
I blinked. 'You are apologizing?'
'Yes, do not sound so devilish shocked. I know it is a strange endeavor for Lucius Grenville, but you might let me get through it.'
'I am surprised only because I had thought to write an apology to you,' I said. 'I behaved badly, and I know it.'
'No, I behaved badly.' Red crept into Grenville's cheeks. 'Throwing a tantrum because neither you nor Marianne would think and speak as I wanted you to. I expected you to fall down and worship me because I condescended to befriend you. You ought to have struck me with that walking stick of yours and told me what a prig I was.'
'Why, when you are striking yourself so well?'
'Do not laugh at me, Lacey, I beg you.' Grenville squared his shoulders and held out his hand. 'We could both go on and on about who is the worse, but shall we shake and settle it? My stomach will certainly feel better.'
I took his hand, feeling better myself. I had feared my friendship with him at a true end.
Grenville grinned at me as we clasped hands, hard, then he assumed his usual air of nonchalance. It would never do for the great Grenville to be seen having an emotion.
'What about Marianne?' I asked as I stepped back.
He looked pained. 'I will cross the Marianne bridge when I come to it. I am certain that she will step on me when I grovel to her, but I will do it.'
'She said much the same thing about you.'
His brows rose. 'Did she?'
'Yes,' I said. 'She returned from Berkshire very early this morning and was most upset to be turned away from the Clarges Street house.'
'Hmm.' Grenville straightened his already straight neckcloth. 'Well, this will be an interesting reconciliation. Shall we go out and search, gentlemen? The air around the Thames might not be as cloying as it is here.'
The sun had finally set after long summer twilight by the time Jackson let the three of us out on the Strand. Jackson stayed with the carriage while we found the lane near Bottle Bill's lodgings where Mary's body had lain.
In the approaching night, a few rats scuttled there, but no one else. One of Denis's men went past on a cross street. He noticed us and came to us, lantern in hand. I told him what we were doing, and he left again without word.
The lane was cluttered with debris, old boards, part of a door, and rusting basins. Bottle Bill and his helper had brought Mary here from Bill's lodgings two streets over. Once the sun fully set, this lane would be inky black. Already the blank walls of the houses to either side cast deep shadows.
'Let us return to Bottle Bill's rooms,' I said, 'and widen the search from there.'
Grenville and Auberge agreed, probably because they, like me, felt that there was little else we could do. We walked in silence to the house were Bottle Bill eked out his existence.
The door to Bill's lodgings was gray with age. The paint had peeled until only a few streaks of black were left to tell us the door's original color. I'd wondered how the murderer managed to get the body inside Bill's lodgings, but I saw that the door did not latch correctly. Bill probably never bothered to lock it in any case. The door was ajar even now, and I knocked on it as I pushed it inward.
I found an empty room, fairly large but stuffy, the only air coming from the cracked window near the door. A pallet of blankets lay against the wall near a fireplace, which was cold. Across the room sat a table holding the remains of a meal.
The room led to no other. Where I would expect to find a door to a stair that would take me to the upper rooms, I saw blank brick instead. As Auberge and Grenville looked about, I went outside and noted a second window next to Bill's and a door beyond that, which looked much newer than Bill's door. I concluded that this had once been one house, with the downstairs partitioned off to create a room that could then be let.
I wondered if the landlord lived next door, or whether the rest of the house was let to someone else. I stepped up to the second door, which had a little more paint on it than Bill's, and lifted my walking stick to tap on it.
Just then, I heard shouting in the street beyond. 'Nab 'im! Come back here, you!'
Bottle Bill himself hurtled down the lane, arms pumping, head down. I stepped in front of him, and he rammed into me full force.
