The grand Georgian townhouse in Mayfair, with its marble floors, painted frescoes and gallery of long-dead ancestors, was Nellie’s first inkling of trouble. She’d known Pip came from a wealthy family, but she hadn’t expected such ostentatious riches. And when Sir Thaddeus received them, all her worst premonitions started to shrill at her.
Fastidiously dressed in impeccable black, Sir Thaddeus Ormond cut a commanding figure, but it was his eyes which gripped her attention. Hooded and sharp as an eagle’s, his eyes raked her from top to toe as Pip made the introductions, leaving her in no doubt as to his fury.
“Your wife!” he fumed at Pip. “Have you gone stark raving mad? Who is this…this person?” His stinging glare at Nellie made her shrivel. One look instantly marked her as inferior in everything that mattered to him—class, lineage, breeding, heritage. She was as inconsequential as the dirt beneath his fingernails, and just as welcome.
“I d—do apologise, sir, but we could not wait,” Pip stammered out, his brow bathed in sweat.
Sir Thaddeus glowered at him, ignoring Nellie’s presence so pointedly it was as if she didn’t even exist. Gradually the puce in his face receded, and the incandescent rage in his eyes cooled to an adamantine glitter. Unclenching his jaw, he said more evenly, “I’m glad to see you’ve regained your senses and returned to London.” He put his arm around his son’s shoulders and wheeled him away from Nellie. “Come into my study, boy. We have a lot to discuss.”
“But—but sir, my wife…” Pip darted an anxious glance at Nellie.
Sir Thaddeus’s hawk-like face wrinkled up as if he’d caught an offensive smell. “That is one of the subjects of discussion. She can wait here,” he added over his shoulder.
Nellie waited for Pip to shrug off his father’s hold and protest, but instead he seemed to shrink under Sir Thaddeus’s arm. “Do you mind waiting, Nellie? We shouldn’t be long.”
Nellie stared after father and son in disbelief. Humiliated, she was forced to sit under the disdainful watch of a footman who failed to offer her any refreshment. Twenty minutes later, Pip returned, alone. He was shaking uncontrollably and could barely speak with any clarity. He grabbed Nellie’s arm and bundled her out of the house.
On the way back to their lodgings, she received the story in dribs and drabs. Sir Thaddeus was adamant that Pip get rid of Nellie. He was to divorce her, Pip told her, on the grounds of adultery. Sir Thaddeus had given Pip the name of someone who would assist him in the matter, and would pay for the man’s services, but nothing more. Until Pip rid himself of his guttersnipe wife, Sir Thaddeus wouldn’t give him so much as a farthing.
“Guttersnipe! How dare he?” Nellie seethed, stamping her boots as her indignation grew. “I may not be able to trace my ancestors back to the Domesday Book, but I’m more than respectable enough. I hope you rebuked him severely, Pip.”
Pip merely wrung his hands and hunched his shoulders. “You do not understand. My father is inordinately proud of the Ormond name. We have so many illustrious forebears, so many achievements. But I am the last of the Ormonds, my father’s only son. It’s natural he’s upset at me marrying without his permission.”
“How can you defend him so? His behaviour towards me was an insult and a slur.”
“Please, Eleanor. Our marriage came as a great shock to Father, but hopefully he’ll come round if we lay low and give him time.”
“Eleanor? Why are you calling me Eleanor?”
“Well, it is your given name.” Pip shrugged uncomfortably. “And Nellie sounds so, er, so…”
“Common?” She laughed bitterly and trudged even louder, scuffing her boots along the rough pavement. They were so poor they couldn’t afford a cab, and here was Pip wanting to call her Eleanor.
“All will be well,” he pleaded. “We simply have to give my father time to adjust.”
She stopped in her tracks and stared at him, wondering how he could be so spineless. “We don’t need to wait for your father to come round. I have nursing experience. I can apply for a position at one of the hospitals here in London.”
Pip looked aghast. “You? Work? No, I could not allow my wife to work. It’s—it’s degrading, intolerable. I’ll not have it. Do you hear me, Eleanor?”
She heaved a gust of exasperation. “Those are fine principles, but principles won’t feed us or keep us warm at night.”
He winced as if such basic needs were too vulgar to be mentioned. “My reputation would not survive such an affront. You cannot become a drudge.”
“You didn’t object when I was nursing in the asylum.”
“But you did it out of kindness not mercenary gain. You were an angel of mercy.
He gazed at her with a pitiful expression, and the sight of his agony melted her rancour. Poor Pip. His father was frightful, as bad a parent as her own unfortunate father. She and Pip must stand together. And besides, he was still recuperating from his mental collapse. She had to allow him some leeway. She was his wife, and she ought to be supporting him instead of haranguing him like a fishwife.
“Of course, my dear. Let’s get home as quickly as possible. Shall we catch the omnibus?”
She linked her arm with his and led him across the road, but even as she chided herself to be a better spouse, the niggling disquiet within her wouldn’t be silenced. When they reached their dingy lodgings, Pip retired to bed, declaring that he ached all over. She tried to rearrange the blankets, but he insisted she join him in bed. He clung to her, his head on her bosom, and would not let her go. As the night wore on, he became agitated and delirious. He moaned for his mama over and over, and Nellie could do nothing to calm him. The sound of him lamenting his long-dead mother set her teeth on edge. Was this really how a grown man ought to behave? Ashamed of her thoughts, she berated herself for her lack of charity and tried to whisper words of comfort to him.
Over the following days Pip’s collapse worsened, and Nellie feared she would have to summon a physician, but she had no connections in the vast metropolis and very little money. Fortunately he began to recover. The fever passed, and he lay in bed listlessly thumbing his poetry volumes and sighing heavily. His nightly cries to his dead mama continued, though, and Nellie found them so unnerving she took to sleeping on the narrow settee whose broken springs tortured her back all night long.
One day he went out and came back looking far more animated. He had a newspaper with him and showed her an advertisement for a spiritual medium who, for a small fee, would conduct a private seance for select customers.
“I’ve always believed there is a close connection between this world and the next,” Pip said, all eagerness. “Madame Olga can communicate directly with the spirits who have departed to the afterlife. Her address is in Aldgate, not far from here. Shall we go?”
Nellie was appalled. “You surely don’t believe in all that flummery, do you?”
Pip gave her an offended look. “You shouldn’t mock something you have no understanding of. If you don’t wish to attend, I shall go by myself.”
“But, Pip, we have little enough for food, and we’re behind on our rent. You can’t mean to squander money on such silliness.”
“Oh, bosh! You’ve no business telling me what to do with my own money.”
His haughty glare, too reminiscent of his father’s, made her heart sink. She tried to reason with him. “Pip, how will contacting the dead help us in our predicament?”
For a few moments he sucked on his lower lip and eventually replied, “I wish only to speak with my dear mother and know she is well. Would you deny me that chance?”
Her heart sank even further. She knew firsthand the pain of losing a mother. During her years of debilitating loneliness, at times she could have sworn she’d sensed the gentle presence of her mother’s spirit comforting her. But purposely attempting to commune with the dead—that was dabbling with the occult and best left alone. However, if it would stop Pip’s nightly cries, then perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for him to consult Madame Olga.
“No, of course you must go,” she said.
“I knew you would see things my way. And, my dear, do stop frowning so. I cannot have a wife with
