I spent the better part of that day trying to decide whether Stoker should break out of the house that night or whether I should breakin, but in the end, the matter was decided for me. Preparations for the upcoming tortoise nuptials had set the household at sixes and sevens, and amidst the chaos, Lady Wellie sent for us. We had been summoned back to London at her insistence. The audacious killer known as Jack the Ripper had begun a murderous rampage, slaughtering his victims so brutally that it had caught the nation’s attention—and Lady Wellie’s. We knew the villain had struck again, two victims in the same night, and it was this heinous double crime that caused her to dispatch a telegram insisting upon our return and ending our Cornish adventure.
After the bracing air of Cornwall, London was a contrast of sooty fogs and afternoon lamps lit against the early October gloom. Lady Wellie awaited us in her private rooms, her dark gaze alert. A clock on the mantel ticked softly, and in the corner stood a large gilded cage in which two lovebirds chattered companionably. Lady Wellie flicked a significant glance towards the clock.
“It is about time,” she said by way of greeting.
Stoker bent to brush a kiss to her withered cheek. She did not simper as she usually did, but her expression softened a little.
“I do apologize,” I told her. “His lordship waylaid us on the way in with news of alterations in our lodgings, and then we were sorting the details for a tortoise wedding. Patricia is to be a bride.”
Lady Wellie’s clawlike hand curved over the top of her walking stick. “I know. I was asked to provide her with a bit of Honiton lace for a veil,” she replied. “But I have not summoned you here to discuss the latest family foray into madness. I need your help.”
Lady Wellie was plainspoken by habit but seldom quite so forthright. Stoker shot me a glance.
“The East End murderer,” he supplied. “We read the latest newspapers on the train this morning. He has a penchant for prostitutes, this fellow.”
“Not prostitutes,” she corrected swiftly. “The newspapers know what sells, but the most one can say definitively of these unfortunates is they are women who possibly turn to the trade in moments of necessity. None of them has been a true professional.”
“Does it make a difference?” I put in.
“I imagine it does to them,” she replied. Her hand flexed on the walking stick, and I noticed she did not offer us refreshment. Lady Wellie kept one eye on the ormolu clock upon the mantel as she spoke. For the first time, I was aware of a taut stillness in the room, something expectant, stretched on tiptoe. Even the lovebirds fell silent.
She went on. “It is still early days in the investigation, but it seems each of them had a regular occupation—flower seller, hop picker. If they sold themselves, it was only to make the price of a bed at night or a pint of gin. When they had need of ready cash and nothing left to pawn, they exploited the only asset in their possession.”
“Poor devils,” Stoker said softly. We lived in luxury thanks to his lordship’s largesse, but we had seen such women often enough in our travels about the city. Haggard and worn by worry and poor nutrition, they were old before their time, their flesh their only commodity.Whether they used their bodies to labor in a field or up against the rough brick of an alley wall, every ha’penny they collected was purchased at a dreadful cost.
Lady Wellie cleared her throat. “Yes, well. As you can imagine, the newspapers cannot contain themselves. They are utterly hysterical on the subject, whipping up the capital into a fever of terror and speculation. I do not like the mood at present. Anything is possible.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I filled in the rest. “You mean republicanism is on the rise again.”
“There is agitation in every quarter. Thesejournalists”—her voice dripped scorn upon the word—“are taking this opportunity to stoke resentment against immigrants, against the Jews, and against the wealthy.”
“Not groups that ordinarily fall in for resentment from the same quarter,” Stoker observed.
“They do now. The middle class is perfectly poised to hate in both directions. They think the lower orders criminal and they fear them even as they look down upon them. And they resent the rich for not taking better care of the situation, policing the poor and the indigent.”
I thought back to the tent city that had occupied Trafalgar Square for the better part of the year, row upon row of temporary structures sheltering those who had no other place to go. For months, the indigent had slept rough, washing themselves as best they could in the fountains, passing under the gaze of the Barbary lions. There were not enough soup kitchens and shelters and doss-houses to keep everyone fed and warm, and it was all too easy to step over some slumbering wretch upon the pavement and dismiss it as someone else’s trouble to solve.
“The mood, at present, is dangerous,” she went on. “The goodwill from last year’s Jubilee seems to have evaporated.” Queen Victoria,desolate in her widowhood, had withdrawn from public life, immuring herself in stony silence at Windsor Castle.
But it had been two and a half decades since Prince Albert’s death, and the queen’s unwillingness to show herself to her people had bred annoyance, which had turned to outright debate about whether a monarchy was even relevant in modern times. The previous year’s Jubilee had seen the queen out and about, a rotund little figure swathed in black silk and larded with diamonds, nodding and waving to the cheers that resounded as her extended royal clan trotted obediently in her wake in a glorious and glittering panoply. But a year was a long time in public memory, and over the winter—the hardest in decades—privation and want had grown so terrible that all of the warm feeling of patriotism and bonhomie towards the royal family had melted like ice on a summer’s day.
Lady Wellie clasped her walking stick more tightly. “It is the very worst time for any sort of scandal to break.” She paused, and I saw her gaze sharpen as she looked from me to Stoker and back again. Suddenly I understood that feeling of taut expectation.
“Which one of them?” I asked.
“You will see soon enough,” she replied grimly.
Just then, the clock struck the hour and there came a low scratching noise behind the paneling next to the fireplace. Lady Wellie looked to Stoker.
“Open it. You will find the mechanism behind the china shepherdess on the mantel,” she instructed.
Stoker did as he was bade, pressing a hidden button on the mantel. The paneling next to the fireplace swung open on silent hinges, and for a moment all I could see was Stoker snapping to attention and making a low bow as Lady Wellie struggled slowly to her feet, then sank into a deep curtsy. A tall, slender figure swathed in heavy blackveils entered. I found myself standing with no conscious intention of rising. She had that effect upon people.
“Your Royal Highness,” said Lady Wellie. “Miss Veronica Speedwell and Mr. Revelstoke Templeton-Vane, the younger brother of Viscount Templeton-Vane. Veronica, Stoker, Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales.”
CHAPTER
2
