The driver is anxious to depart and heads off with a crack of his whip. The horses lurch forward leaving their piles in the street.
Constance is unaware how long she stands in the cold before Rachael and Nancy come out with her cloak and gently place it on her shoulders. The lavender cashmere skims the sodden ground. Nancy and Rachael would not in usual circumstances dare touch their employer, but every rule has exceptions. The young women hold her firmly as they lead her back inside Lawless House. Constance roams from room to room where all the preparations for the feast day mock her. She cannot find her sister and has no voice to call out to her.
An awful sound emanates from the Tower Room. Constance finds Verity cowering on the floor, garbling some sort of indecipherable prayer in a voice that shrieks like a banshee. With no wish for the maids to see her sister so contorted, Constance begins the work of prising Verity away from the curve of the wall. It is a long, painstaking task for Verity does not want to be moved. Her arms flail and she stubbornly makes her legs heavy. Wisps of Constance’s hair fly out from their pins and her full skirts are mangled in the effort as she drags her sister to Rafe’s bed. Heaving her onto the mattress aggravates her sister’s chanting and screeching. Constance can stand it no longer. She slaps her once into a desperate silence.
The day is done. They sit in the boy’s room in darkness.
‘I will offer her money,’ Constance whispers, as the wind blows branches against the window. ‘She has a weakness for it. We will buy three visits a week. No, perhaps one, one visit a week, to begin.’
Verity moans.
‘We shall go to Limehouse tomorrow,’ Constance continues. ‘We will deliver more of his belongings. Clothes and things. What about that, sister?’
Verity does not respond. They sit in silence.
It is past the maids’ time. They should be gone for the evening but Constance hears their footfall downstairs. With whatever they are occupied, their kindness knots her throat.
The night grows darker still, the Tower Room, frigid.
Verity stirs at last. Constance hears her open her dry mouth.
‘She has not the slightest bit of tenderness towards him. No tenderness, Constance. He will have no love in Limehouse.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
On the busy Commercial Road, Nora Mockett dreams of the shops of Regent Street and their large plate-glass windows that can be illuminated by gaseliers all evening long. She imagines sliding the lights down to her chosen product, shining light directly on it. What joy.
The door of Mockett’s shop opens and her lovely daydream disintegrates. With her metal nib poised mid-air, she cannot believe her eyes and actually blinks, in spite of herself. It is not possible …
Clovis Fowler stands before her – completely unchanged. How can it be? Dumbfounded, Nora simply stares at the radiant woman. She cannot tear her eyes away, even while she comprehends that Mrs Fowler is relishing every second of her stupefied gawking.
Clovis tilts her head an inch or two.
‘Mrs Mockett?’
‘Mrs Fowler,’ Nora manages.
Nora is further astounded when from behind Clovis’s enormous skirts the servant girl, she cannot remember her name, steps into view. She, too, is unchanged.
‘I am here on business with Mr Mockett.’
‘Indeed.’ Nora gathers strength in spite of her light-headedness. ‘And is he aware of your … return?’
‘No, but I had hoped I would not need an appointment to see an old friend at his place of business.’
Nora might be mistaken, but she senses a proprietorial tone in Mrs Fowler’s voice and she is more than a bit uneasy about it. She must find her footing again.
‘Mr Mockett is currently on a house call. I don’t expect him until after the lunch hour.’
‘Tell him I will return tomorrow, won’t you?’
‘Of course. I trust you found your home to your satisfaction?’
‘Indeed. The attention to the boy’s room is particularly noticeable.’
‘And is your son home with you now?’
‘He is. Perhaps I will let you meet him when I return.’ She turns to leave and pauses. With her back to Nora, ‘He is a handsome young thing.’
‘The reason I enquired about your house …’
‘You were paid well to look after it,’ Clovis clips. She loses patience with this woman.
‘After you were taken away, your neighbours pelted the windows with rotten fruit and vegetables,’ Nora continues. ‘They smashed eggs against your front door. The knocker was torn off and auctioned to the highest bidder at the Black Horse. We bought another to replace it. Then we set a couple of boys on watch at the house until the revellers grew bored.’
‘Who won the knocker?’ Clovis asks.
‘I do not know him.’
‘You will be reimbursed. And then I wish to hear no more of your good deeds.’
‘My word. Prison doesn’t half strip you of your manners.’
The door slams.
Later that evening, while Owen works late to fill last-minute orders, Nora sits at her dressing table and pours three fingers of whisky. She opens her folded vanity mirror and sets it on the table. Positioning the three bevelled mirrors so that she may catch all angles of her face, she turns the lamp up a notch.
‘Be brave,’ she whispers.
The evidence stares back at her. The morning bloat takes a larger portion of the day to diminish, so that only now, late in the evening does it sink to wherever bloat goes. The beginning of a jowl disturbs her more than her crinkling smile. Puffed skin hangs above her eyelids. She positions one of the end mirrors to catch her profile. It is her first sight of a developing second chin. She closes her eyes. Until this day she had always considered that she was ageing well.
Her hands with their veins visibly pulsing under thin skin slide her dressing gown off her shoulders. They stroke the tiny crevices between her breasts. Nine years have done this to her. And nine years have not laid even a
