stirred thoughts of the home she had left 15 years ago, and could never return to.
She would stick to her Catherine Cooksons and her Danielle Steeles, written in English simple enough for her to understand, and forget the rest.
I’m so tired-
Then someone was shaking her shoulder.
“Time to go home,” the young man said, kindly. “Your little girl’s waiting.”
And his concerned thoughts were obvious: You should eat more, too.
In the reading-room’s doorway, Gus was standing with her arms full of books. She grinned at her mother, showing the gap in the front where two neighbouring milk teeth had dropped out within days of each other.
“Sorry.” Rubbing her eyes, she smiled at Gus. “Got your books, pumpkin?”
“Yes, Mummy.”
She took the books from Gus’s arms and carried them to the counter, where the librarian could scan them through.
“Hmm. Abbott’s Flatland.” He stamped the due-date inside. “Not bad. But I don’t know this Pickover chap. Surfing through Hyperspace. Is that good?”
He looked up at Louisa, but it was Gus who answered: “It’s not bad. I like the stories.”
Since it was a nonfiction book, the librarian chuckled, and winked at Louisa as though they were sharing a joke. But there were stories inside, as well as strange science; Louisa had looked over Gus’s shoulder the last time she had borrowed the book.
“Come on, pumpkin. Time to go home.”
The young librarian watched them as they left.
Later, on the bus ride home, Gus tugged at Mother’s sleeve and said: “Why don’t you marry him?”
Mother’s face froze. “I’m sorry?”
Gus knew the one topic she could never ask-would never get an answer on-was the subject of her father. But this was different.
“The man at the library. He likes you.”
For a moment, Mother was speechless. Then she shook her head, smiling sadly. “Oh, no, Gus. I’m not good enough for him.”
“But Mummy, you’re-”
“No, I’m not.” Silence, then: “But you… You’re the most important person in the world, little pumpkin.”
And Gus, with a child’s intuition, kept silent for the rest of the journey. She was tempted to open one of her storybooks-there was an old one with a bright yellow cover, Time is the Simplest Thing, and she’d read the first two pages inside the library, with the pink telepathic alien blob, and saw immediately that it was brilliant-but she knew from experience that trying to read inside a moving bus would make her sick.
And the waiting, she knew, would make the story even better.
Over the next year, Mother would occasionally smile and nod to the nice man at the library, but they would never get into a real conversation. And then, one Saturday, there was no sign of him. Neither Gus nor Mother ever saw the man again.
Eleven years later, when she was 20, Gus would finally discover her birth certificate-born in 1989 in St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London-with her mother’s name written in the appropriate spot: Louisa Annebella Calzonni. And, in the space for the father’s name, nothing.
Nothing at all.
And decades after that, when she had become one of the richest women in the world, she would hire private detectives, and even ask favours of official investigative agencies, including Interpol, to find out something of her origins.
One enterprising team would eventually find the grave of a couple named Calzonni, whose daughter Louisa had disappeared in 1987, in a small village on the outskirts of Turin. But in whose company Louisa had disappeared, or whom she had travelled to meet, no one would ever discover.
Of her earlier ancestors, Gus would learn nothing.
Grey fog blankets the boulevard which is Pall Mall, causing the gas-lamps-the lamplighter is still on his rounds, can just be seen far down the street, at his work-to hiss in the damp, heavy air. The buildings are grand, doors fronted by columns in the neo-classical style: white-painted or pale grey, eerie in the fogbound night.
There is a Peeler on duty, on the other side of the wide avenue, his tall rounded helmet lending him the appearance of a toy wooden soldier. But the long truncheon tucked in his leather belt, and the whistle for summoning help, are real enough.
The anonymous man, Ada’s messenger, half-hidden in a doorway and overly conscious of the pistol in his tweed coat’s pocket, stands very still.
Mistress… This is for my Countess.
Ada engenders such extreme reactions, in her servants as well as her peers: a total, smitten adoration; or a fearful loathing, as though her dark spiritual curse may be infectious.
Just wait…
And, eventually, there is the clop of hooves: a disreputable-looking horse and cart passing through, heading towards Trafalgar Square. The policeman leaves his post to investigate.
Now.
Ada’s messenger, his face muffled against the fog and his hat pulled low, moves quickly but noiselessly across the cobblestones, and into the entrance-way of the Athenaeum Club. Ignoring the shining brass knocker, he taps softly. After a long, tense moment, the big panelled door swings open.
The footman nods in recognition, and leads the messenger inside. In the messenger’s left hand is an envelope addressed to F. Prandi, Esq.; he holds it up for the footman to see. A discreet cough, then another manservant gestures, and leads the messenger along a marble-tiled corridor, to a quiet gentlemen’s snug at the rear.
A knock, and the door is opened from within.
“Ah, my friend.” A rotund man beams. His Italian accent, when he speaks, is scarcely detectable. “Come in. Sit down.”
There is a reek of old cigarillos in the room, although no one is smoking at present. Books line the walls, and copies of Bentley’s Miscellany litter two small tables. A globe stands in one corner, beside a heavy, dark-green ceiling-to-floor drape.
“I am reading the most excellent serial”-the round-faced Italian’s smile flashes beneath his dark moustache-“by your wonderful Mr. Dickens. Whom I gather”-lowering his voice-“your esteemed mistress personally knows.”
The messenger’s expression is stoic. His reply, when he makes it, carries the unmistakable burr of the Scottish Highlands.
“That I cannot say, sir.”
“And what can you say?” Irritation prickles Signor Prandi’s voice. “What, pray, is that in your hand?”
“A letter, sir. Addressed to you.”
The messenger hands it over quickly, before the Italian can snatch it, or make disparaging comments about his mistress.
“Hmm…” Tearing open the seal, Prandi flicks a glance over it. “Not signed, I notice.”
“She… Since the matter of the Royal Mail, sir…”
The Italian’s private letters have been intercepted in the past: an absolute scandal to the British public who had assumed their personal correspondence was sacrosanct. But then, Signor Prandi is a known spy, and a foreigner.
“Don’t worry.” Reading the note more carefully, he adds: “Do you know anything of this favour she wishes me to grant?”
A pause, then: “No, sir. I do not.”
But that hesitation told its own story. There is a flash of gold, as Prandi hands over two sovereigns. The messenger gulps, then secretes the coins in his waistcoat’s watch-pocket.
“I only… The bairn’ll need a wet-nurse, sir, if it is to survive.”
