“Oh!”
“I’m off now to have a demonstration and study of a new steam engine. Love those things and what they are building with them. And Jimmy,” he said, turning to the footman, “You know what to tell the family if they ask?”
“You are at the library, your grace,” the footman dutifully responded.
He turned back to Bella and winked again, then he was gone, leaving Bella bemused. Does everyone live with secrets?
Bella had just requested a coffee refill when Lady Malmsby and Gwinnie came into breakfast.
“Good morning, Bella!” Lady Malmsby said. “I’m glad I caught you here. We have decided, Gwinnie and myself, that Gwinnie will accompany you to the solicitor’s office today.”
“Thank you, your grace, but that won’t be necessary, and I know Gwinnie would rather be practicing.”
“I’m serious, Bella. You need another pair of eyes and ears to hear all the solicitor will say. It is not common for a solicitor tosummona client to visit, particularly if said client is out of town, then leave them kicking their heels for two days. That shows a lack of respect that is not acceptable.”
“And I said to Grandmother that if there is unfinished business from two years ago, they are incompetent, thieves, or Sir Harry played some tricks with his will and your inheritance. A disinterested third party can help sort the details and suggest questions you might not consider as you think about what you learn.”
Bella thought about what they said. “I do not believe it is the first two,” she said slowly. “But I could well believe the third. I admit, a person who doesn’t know Harry might be an advantage at this meeting.”
Gwinnie bounced on her toes. “I’m looking forward to the outing! I confess, I have a curiosity about all legal things. When I’m not playing music, I like to sit in the gallery at the Olde Bailey and listen to the legal proceedings. They are all so fascinating. More enjoyable than rounds of visiting. The trials bore my maid, Rose, but she brings knitting with her. I get so complacent, one day much like the other. I suggested to Grandmother that I go with you. Grandmother had quite decided thatshewould accompany you. I told her I did not think that was a good idea. She would take over your meeting and you wouldn’t like that.”
“Unfortunately, I agree with Gwinnie. I have that tendency,” Lady Malmsby ruefully said. “Typically, this is something I would ask Nowlton to do, as he is whom I first turn to whenever I have a legal question or issue. However, understanding your mutual feelings toward each other, I can’t do that.”
“I would not have gone with him!” Bella said. “And I would go back to Mivart’s Hotel before I would allow you to throw me into his company.”
Lady Malmsby nodded. “I know, I won’t do that, and it appears Nowlton is of the same mind as you.” She compressed her lips momentarily. “I never confronted Nowlton three years ago as to what went on. I should have. That was remiss on my part.”
“And quite unlike you,” Gwinnie adds.
Lady Malmsby frowned at her but nodded in reluctant agreement.
* * *
Shortly before 10:00 a.m.,Stephen, the footman, assisted Bella, Gwinnie, and Gwinnie’s maid, Rose, into a Malmsby carriage for the journey across town to the offices of Hargate, Owen, and Hargate.
“I know little about the law practiced by solicitors,” Gwinnie told Bella. “From what I’ve read, it can be boring. It is the barristers who come before judges who fascinate me. They, and the magistrates and Bow Street Runners who bring miscreants to trial. The stories one hears in a courtroom are horrifying.”
“If they are horrifying, why do you go?”
She lifted her shoulders slightly, then dropped them. “I don’t know,” she said. She looked out the carriage window. “I’ve lived a sheltered life. I believe most of the aristocracy do. And in my case, I have a father who lives in the past and a brother who, through his gothic novels, lives in make-believe. A horrifying make-believe sometimes, but nonetheless make-believe. I look out in the streets and see people engaged in all manner of activities and I wonder about them. Then I went to my first trial. Remember it Rose?” Gwinnie asked, looking over at her maid.
“Indeed, I do, my lady, shameful, it were,” Rose said, looking up from her knitting.
Gwinnie nodded. She turned back to Bella. “The footman, Stephen, who helped us into the carriage, had a nephew kidnapped for his clothes.”
“A child kidnapped for their clothes?”
“Yes. Sometimes even infants are kidnapped, stripped of their clothes and left somewhere with just a nappy on while the kidnapper sells the tyke’s clothes in the pawnshops. Most times just for the price of a bottle of blue ruin.
“Most times the kidnapper thieves are not caught—this once they were. A laundress. Rose and I went to the trial.”
Rose nodded. “And she showed no remorse, neither. Ungodly woman.”
Gwinnie nodded. “And it wasn’t the first time she’d done this for drink. The proceedings and the other cases heard the same day fascinated me. I’ve passed many afternoons in the galleries since then. What people do, and why they do it is sometimes heartbreaking. Sometimes it is just to survive. I work with a small group of like-minded peers. We support homes and education for those who have found themselves so desperate or threatened that they have resorted to crime, but in their souls are good people.”
“You gladden my heart to hear there are such people in our society. My experiences have not shown the same kindness to others,” Bella said, bitterly remembering all she’d seen in the war.
Gwinnie sighed, “Unfortunately, not enough.—We are getting close to the area of town where your solicitor has an office.”
