The Dark Days Club (A Lady Helen Novel) Page 11

  When she finally heard the clock downstairs chime three, she rose and whispered, “Check the hallway.”

  Darby crossed to the door, opened it a crack, and peered out. She gave a reassuring nod and ducked back to retrieve the iron rasp from the mantel.

  Gathering her gown, Helen stepped softly into the dim corridor and peered up through the balustrade at Mrs. Grant’s door on the half landing above. Far too close for comfort. The door was firmly closed, but even so, Helen suppressed a shudder at the thought of being discovered by the housekeeper. It had always been her main anxiety on her midnight forays—Mrs. Grant would be quick to report any misdemeanor to Aunt. And this time there was more at stake: she had involved Darby. Mrs. Grant would be even quicker to report an upstart housemaid raised too high. Helen bunched her gown more tightly. Maybe she should send Darby back.

  At that moment, Darby emerged from the dressing room and shut the door. Only a sliver of brightness from under the doorway brought some shape to the dark corridor and lit the excitement on her maid’s face. Helen stood still in the gloom, warring with herself. It was not fair to put her at such risk. Yet it felt right to have the girl by her side. A strange thing to admit.

  “You must go back,” Helen whispered.

  The excitement on Darby’s face drew down into a frown. “No, my lady. This is for Berta.”

  It was true: this was no silly night wandering. They had an important purpose. With a nod, Helen led the way to the staircase.

  They paused at the top and peered down the switchback of stairs. The second and first floors were dark. The only light came up from the ground-floor foyer: the night lamp outside the front door shone through the high fanlight window, patterning the marble floor with a crescent of lacework. Helen held her breath and listened, but no sound rose. The house seemed at rest. It was time to go down.

  She avoided the squeaky top step and landed lightly on the one below, glancing back. With a smile, Darby followed. They made their way slowly down the three flights to the foyer, their steps muffled by the thick carpet runners. At the bottom, Helen crept toward the back corridor, intent on reaching the kitchen stairs at the rear of the house, the route she had always taken to wheedle a cake from Cook. A hiss from Darby turned her around.

  “We can take Mr. Barnett’s stairs, my lady.” She pointed down the narrow, uncarpeted extension of the main staircase.

  Helen had only a rough map of the servants’ quarters in her mind. Even so, she knew the stairs ended just behind the butler’s pantry, and the housekeeper’s room—their goal—was well beyond it, near the front of the house. She also knew that Barnett slept in a small room adjacent to his pantry to protect the valuable plate. Hopefully he was a deep sleeper.

  She paused at the top step and contemplated the dark stairwell. The basement had very few windows, and none along the corridor. Without a candle, it would make more sense for Darby to go first—her duties took her down there every day. Helen made a soft sound of self-reproach. It was neither Darby’s place nor her responsibility to take the lead.

  “Keep close,” Helen whispered, and, with more confidence than she felt, descended into the darkness, her grip sliding along the smooth, worn wood of the balustrade.

  The steep spiral of steps sighed and creaked under their cautious descent. Darby took her at her word and stayed on her heels the whole way down. As they neared the bottom, Helen slowed their momentum to an even more careful creep. The darkness felt as if it had its own texture: a dense, thick wrapping of black. Helen could barely see the last few steps as she made her way down to the cold stone floor.

  The damp air in the corridor smelled of boiled wool and meat fat. It even tasted greasy, settling at the back of Helen’s throat like a dose of oil. She felt her way along the plaster wall until her fingers found a corner. A chilly draft swirled around her ankles, bringing with it a whiff of the servants’ privy and the horse stink of the mews. Ah—the passageway to the side yard. She led the way across, her groping fingers finding the smooth guide of the opposite wall.

  A few more steps along the corridor brought her fingertips up against the frame of a doorway: the butler’s pantry. Door open. If Barnett heard them pass, all was lost. Beside her, Darby sucked in a hard breath, obviously coming to the same conclusion. No candle was alight within, but that did not mean Barnett was asleep. Through the door, she could see a narrow window set high in the wall, a gray rectangle against the darkness, but there was not enough light to reach the corridor. She strained to hear if there was any movement in the room. Yes, something was making a noise. Low and deep. A snore? It came again: a rough, rhythmic snort. Helen held her own breath, waiting. There it was again. Definitely a snore. She grabbed Darby’s sleeve and edged past the door, wincing as the girl’s half boot scraped the stone. Had Barnett heard it too? She pulled Darby along, praying for the next snore. Finally it sawed through the silence.

  Helen could just make out the corridor’s end: a faint outline of the front basement door, its top and bottom silvered with pale light from the lamp high on the street above. It was enough to show her their destination: the shadowy door to the housekeeper’s room.

  Darby saw it too, or perhaps she just knew they were close, for she quickened her step.

  Unlike Barnett’s door, this one was firmly closed. Helen grasped the cold metal handle and slowly turned it. What if Mrs. Grant was still inside? The wild thought came too late: the mechanism had already clicked. The door swung inward. Helen stood on the threshold, taking in the terrain, Darby peering over her shoulder. Two front windows allowed enough street light to carve glimpses of detail out of the shadows: the glint of gold lettering along book spines stacked on a desk; a curve of hearth bricks above the last red embers of an evening fire; the ghostly shape of a chemise on a drying rack. And all around, walls filled with shelves of china that shone in cold catches of gleaming white.

  But, thankfully, no Mrs. Grant.

  “There it is,” Darby whispered, pointing to a box under the desk. “I noted it while at tea this evening.”

  “Find a candle,” Helen said. “I’ll get the box.” With one last glance back up the dark corridor, she shut the door.

  Berta’s lockbox was not big. Nor was it heavy, Helen thought with surprise, as she pulled it out from under the desk. There could not be much in it. Darby turned from the fireplace, the flame from a taper bringing soft illumination to the room. Even in that small light, it was obvious that the box was cheap: the deal had not been finished well or even varnished, and the brass lock was badly fitted in the facing of the lid. Helen tapped it. Loose, too. Maybe it would just come apart. She dug her fingernails into the crack between lid and base and lifted, but it stayed stubbornly fast.

  Darby kneeled beside her, tin candleholder in hand. “My lady, be careful of your nails,” she murmured. “Here, let me open it. I have had some experience.”

  “No, I will do it.” If it ever came to recriminations, at least Helen could truthfully say that she had broken open the box. She slotted the end of the rasp into the gap beside the brass lock.

  “You will need to slide right and then up, my lady,” Darby said, demonstrating with the taper. The flame trailed through the air, leaving a momentary path of instruction.

  Helen steadied her grip on the rasp then wrenched it to the right and firmly up. A little too firmly—something cracked. She froze.

  “Oh no,” Darby whispered. “The wood has split.”

  Helen pulled the rasp free. Carefully, she lifted the lid. “At least it is open.”

  Darby was right: the lock had torn free of its moorings and splintered the wood. Helen poked the sharp slivers back into place, but it was obvious the lock could not be pressed back into use.

  “What are we going to do, my lady?”

  “Search for a clue,” Helen said. She could sense the future calamity of the broken lock, but there was no point in retrea
ting from their immediate task. “Hold up the candle.”

  Darby obliged.

  Inside the box, laid across the top, was a white cotton chemisette with a modest ruffle at the neck and a few clumsy pin tucks down the front.

  “That’s her Sunday best,” Darby said softly.

  Helen gently lifted out the bodice insert and placed it on the carpet, suddenly feeling the burden of handling the girl’s belongings. How would she feel if someone broke open her writing desk and pawed through her secrets?

  Next came a blue dress-length of dimity, not yet made up. The cloth was coarse under Helen’s fingers, but the bluebell print was pretty. Beneath it, a few treasures had been carefully laid out: a cheap copy of Mr. Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, three old entrance tickets to Vauxhall Gardens pressed between a folded piece of paper, a length of green riband, four farthings in a heart-shaped tin box, and a Bible.

  “There are no letters,” Helen said, surveying the pitiable array of items. “Did you say her mother lived in the north? Surely she would write to her daughter?”

  Darby shrugged. “She probably doesn’t have the learning for it.”

  Most likely, but it was disappointing to find no address. Helen slipped the Vauxhall tickets from their paper shield. They were years old and a little dirty—probably found on the ground and kept for the pretty artwork. With a sigh, she slid them back into their cover.

  After all that effort, they had discovered nothing that might help locate Berta.

  She picked up the Bible. It was bound with black leather: quite a handsome edition for a housemaid. Maybe it had been a gift or a prize, which meant there could be an inscription inside that noted the place of origin. She opened the cover and flipped to the frontispiece. No inscription, just Berta’s name. She ran her thumb across the gilt edging, fanning the pages. They stopped and parted about halfway through, caught on something inserted within. Two thin cards. She pulled them out.

  It took a moment for the image on the top card to make sense.

  “What is it?” Darby leaned over, the taper in her hand shedding more light onto the abomination. “Holy Father!”

  The drawing showed a naked woman lying on a bed, legs akimbo, a group of men eyeing her through their raised quizzing glasses. A familiar signature was scrawled at the edge.

  “It is by Rowlandson,” Helen said in disbelief, that fact almost as shocking as the image. “How could he draw this? He has exhibited at the Royal Academy!”

  She turned to the next card. Not by Rowlandson, and even more obscene. A naked woman on her knees with a man, hugely rampant, bent over her, like a stallion covering a mare.

  “Why would Berta have such things?” Darby sat back on her heels. “Oh, my lady. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she has gone to Covent Garden.”

  For all her sickened horror, Helen could not stop looking. Of course she had seen depictions of the male member on the Greek statues at the British Museum, but none of those had been so large and upstanding. Was this truly the human act?

  “My lady, you will make yourself ill looking at such filth. Put them away.”

  Helen jammed the cards back between the pages of the Bible and shoved it into the box. Her hand hovered over the leather cover. No, such things should not be housed in the Holy Book. She slid out the cards and quickly inserted them between the pages of The Lady of the Lake. “We must go, Darby.”

  Her maid nodded emphatically. Together they feverishly repacked the rest of Berta’s belongings, closed the box, and pushed it under the desk.

  “What will we do about the lock?” Darby asked.

  “I don’t know,” Helen said, rising to her feet. She just wanted to be away from the room—away from the drawings—as fast as possible.

  With the candleholder back on the mantel and the taper snuffed out, Helen led the way into the corridor. They retraced their steps, the reassuring sound of Barnett’s snores following them to the staircase. As they climbed toward the gray gloom of the foyer, Helen looked back. For an instant she thought she saw a figure—a dense, man-shaped darkness—standing at the recess that led to the yard. Then she blinked, and it was gone.

  Eight

  Saturday, 2 May 1812

  BOTH MISTRESS AND maid were quiet the next morning as Helen dressed for family prayers. Darby tried to raise the subject of the cards, but Helen held up her hand, stopping any discussion. They were all she had thought about for three restless hours before she had finally fallen asleep. She needed to set them aside, at least until the shock and the strange uneasiness they had brought in their wake had found a place to sit within her mind.

  Thankfully, the day planned by her aunt did not offer many opportunities for quiet contemplation. They started at the cloth warehouses, shopping for dress-lengths to take to Madame Hortense and a woolen for Mr. Duray, the habit maker, and then on to an exhausting round of visits, culminating in a small private supper ball at the Lindsays’. During the rather long evening, the images did intrude upon her again, but each time, she firmly pushed them out of her thoughts and concentrated on her conversation and dance steps.

  It was not until Sunday morning at church that the images returned in full worrying force.

  Reverend Haley’s sermon was a vigorous denunciation of unholy entertainments—the dangers of lewd plays and masquerade balls—but his constant use of words like naked and flesh brought back stark flashes of those black ink bodies. Helen saw them when she kneeled on the small prayer stools beside Aunt and Uncle. She saw them as she sang, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” And she saw them from her seat in the family box as she looked at the memorial stones set into the church wall. It was as if the foul images had finally blossomed into their full meaning, like a dark bruise upon her mind. And they had left her with equally troubling questions. Darby had asked the obvious in the housekeeper’s room: Why would a young maid like Berta have such obscene things in her possession? Perhaps it had been a mistake; she had lent her Bible to another who had hidden the cards within to make mischief. Or maybe they had been given to her, although they were hardly a decent man’s token of regard. The other possibility—that Berta really was depraved and had followed that depravity to Covent Garden—haunted Helen in the coach all the way home to Half Moon Street.

  As was Uncle’s custom, he joined Helen and Aunt for Sunday luncheon before he retired to his club. He had long conceded the necessity of allowing his wife, and now Helen, to attend social events on Sundays—the Season did not stop for the Sabbath—but he insisted upon the family dining together after church to maintain the sanctity of the day. It was never an easy meal for Helen, and that afternoon it seemed even more fraught than usual. Perhaps it was the horror of those cards overlaid by the shock of her uncle’s convivial mood.

  “I am glad to hear from your aunt that your presentation went well, Helen.” He smiled over a fork laden with cold beef.

  Helen hurriedly touched her serviette to her lips, hiding a surprised swallow of trout mousse. “It did, Uncle. Thank you.”

  “And the Queen spoke to her too, Pennworth,” Aunt said. “With no mention of Cath—” She trailed off, realizing her mistake, then recovered with a bright “with no mention of awkward connections.”

  He grunted, chewing reflectively. “I am glad to hear it. Let us hope the Court harpies will follow Her Majesty’s example and leave that episode in the past.” He waved his empty fork at Helen. “You see, my dear, our good reputation and your mild behavior has rehabilitated your position. It even has the Royal approval.” He grinned.

  For a moment Helen was nonplused, then she realized he was being playful. She quickly positioned a smile. “Yes, Uncle.”

  He nodded, satisfied, at his wife. “It was well done on our part, Leonore.”

  Aunt straightened under the unusual praise. “Indeed, Pennworth.”

  Helen stared down at the row of beans on her plate.

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sp; “And did you enjoy your evening beside Sir Reginald at the Heathcotes’ the other night?” her uncle continued. She recalled the silent old man at her left who had plowed through the lamb and venison dishes.

  “He seemed quite taken with the meat,” she said, then caught the widening of Aunt’s eyes, and pressed her lips together against further observations.

  Uncle paused in his own spearing of another slice of beef. “He is a widower twice over, you know,” he said, glancing at Aunt. “He mentioned he may be looking to wed again.”

  The delicate trout in Helen’s stomach hardened into a lump of stone. Sir Reginald was approaching sixty.

  Aunt’s eyes fleetingly met Helen’s: another warning not to speak. “I am not so sure, Pennworth. He is only a baronet.”

  “Good stock, though.” Uncle extracted a piece of gristle from between his teeth. “And a bit of bad history wouldn’t put him off. It might with others, you know, even with the Queen’s graciousness.”

  “That may be, but you know Sir Reginald has been forced to sell a good deal of his estate. And it is near Nottingham, where those terrible Luddites are shooting people.”

  Helen looked down at her plate again. Clever Aunt. She had brought up the one subject that Uncle could not leave alone.

  “True,” he said. “The blackguards are rioting all over the country. I read in The Times yesterday that they are placarding the town streets in Nottingham and offering a reward for the mayor, dead or alive. Dead or alive, by Jove! They should all be strung up immediately, or it will end like the French Terror twenty years ago.”