The man who answered the door was plain and unassuming, with thinning, brown hair and spectacles on his nose. “May I help you?”
“I hope so,” Kendrick said with a smile. “Is this the home of Ezra Dryden?”
“Yes, it was, but I’m sorry—Ezra passed away a year ago.” The man frowned at the sword hilt over Kendrick’s shoulder. “What’s this about, Mister…?”
“I’m looking for anyone who may have known him.” Kendrick used a little of his persuasion. “My name is Kendrick. May I come in?”
The frown smoothed away from the man’s forehead. “Oh! Yes, come in.” He held the door open and ushered Kendrick across the threshold. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Kendrick. I am Arthur Cooper. Ezra—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Ezra is greatly missed.”
“You knew him, then,” Kendrick said.
“Yes, we?—”
“Dear, who is it?” A woman about forty stepped out of a sitting room and eyed Kendrick in puzzlement. Some threads of silver wended through her red hair, but it still glowed like flame in the lamplight.
“This is Mr. Kendrick; he’s come asking about Ezra.”
“I’m looking for anyone who may have known Mr. Dryden and his daughter,” Kendrick said.
“Genevieve?” the woman exclaimed. “What about Genevieve?”
Kendrick paused, taking in her hair and the expression on her face. The way her heart had skipped a beat. “Forgive me, ma’am…but is your Christian name Hetty?”
She recoiled, her lips parting.
“Genevieve said that you were her friend,” Kendrick said.
The woman paled and swayed. Her husband was by her side at an instant to steady her. That was a yes, then.
“Perhaps we had best sit down,” Kendrick said soothingly.
In the sitting room, the Coopers sat beside each other on the settee, their hands clasped. Kendrick sat in a much-loved armchair across from them and propped his sword on its side. They barely gave it a distracted glance.
“Can you tell me about Genevieve and her father? How did you know her?” Kendrick asked, letting his gaze and his voice do their work.
“I never met her,” Mr. Cooper said. “Hetty was her friend, though.” He squeezed his wife’s hand.
“Yes,” Mrs. Cooper whispered, her eyes far away. “She was a friend to me, though she was several years older. She and her father were one of the few families who still associated with us after we slid into dire straits. My father had died far sooner than anyone expected, you see,” she explained, “and left behind my mother and sisters and my little brother, who had years yet to reach his majority. There was trouble with the will—it was outdated, and the money tied up by awful legalisms until my brother came of age. So, we were forced to genteel poverty, scrimping and stretching everything and trying to pretend like nothing was wrong. My mother would fly into the boughs whenever I brought up seeking what employment was available to an unwed young lady. In her mind, all we had to do was wait the years out, and then all would be well again. I would not have minded being a shop girl or something of the like. But shame was stronger than hunger—for a time. But eventually, it got so bad, we were only drinking weak tea and stretching the gruel and bread throughout the day.”
She lifted her face to Kendrick. “I decided to sell my hair. I didn’t know what else to do. But then the wigmaker looked down his nose at me, and I got so little for it, and the next Sunday, the vicar preached on”—her voice trembled, even years after the event—“on a woman’s hair being her glory. And it seemed as though he were looking right at me. I ran out of the service crying, but Genevieve came after me and got the whole story out of me. She marched me back to the wigmakers and pounded on the doors—on a Sunday!—until the proprietor opened them, and then she took her bonnet off and demanded to know what he would give her for her hair. And it was long, far past her waist. She browbeat the man until she had talked him up from that paltry sum, and then she demanded to know why I had received so little in payment for mine. She bullied him into paying me the difference, and then she said, ‘Don’t put your moneybox away just yet, sir. Hand me your shears.’”
She bit her lip, shaking her head in amazement. “She sold her hair for me. It was the bravest, most selfless thing I had ever seen. I really think she saved my life a little,” she told Kendrick earnestly. “It certainly felt that way at the time.”
She swallowed. “It was only a few days later she disappeared. I was so shocked. She never would have left her father,” she assured him. “Not without a word like that. And because—because I wanted to be like her, and be brave and think of others, I looked in on him those first few days. Making sure he was eating, giving him a distraction from the worry. He didn’t have any other family. And then Mr. Dryden offered me a job. I could keep house for him and live in, to take some burden off my family and earn an income—more generous than it warranted. And though they were horrified about me taking employment, I did it because I realized I was needed, and I was smart enough to learn what I didn’t know, and I could be brave in the face of adversity.”
“And it was for the best,” she said, with a warm glance at her husband. “When the vicar preached a few too many sermons about souls who wandered from God’s path, and a woman’s place, Ezra took himself to the Methodist church. And that’s where Arthur struck up an acquaintance with Ezra, who brought him to dinner. And that’s how we met.” Her husband squeezed her hand.
Kendrick asked, “And you remained with Mr. Dryden?”
Mrs. Cooper nodded. “At first, he wanted me there in case she came home and—needed someone. A woman’s help. Something like that.” She bit her lip. “And then it was the company. We didn’t like the idea of leaving him on his own after we married, and then he said hang convention, we were part of his family, so we started married life here. The children thought of him as their grandfather, and they miss him still. But I think—it really was a double-edged sword. Every time he heard my foot on the stair, there was a split second where he hoped it was her.” She lifted her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes again.
“And he left you this house?”
Mr. Cooper nodded. “In his will, and the rest of his belongings and money given to women’s charities.”
“Even personal effects? You see…” Kendrick deepened his talent’s influence. “I know Genevieve.”
Mrs. Cooper gasped. “She’salive? She’s all right?”
