“Thank you for your time, Victoria. I believe my brother gave you half of the fee yesterday. Here is the remainder.”
I took a wad of notes from my reticule and thrust them at her. I had no idea how much I gave her. It must not have been less than the agreed amount, though, because after she counted it, she tucked it away in her bodice and flashed me a smile. She was missing a few teeth, but those she had kept looked strong and straight enough.
“You are indeed a real proper lady. Thank you.”
I removed something else from my reticule—a card.
“Take this,” I said, holding it out to her. She took it and looked at it curiously, as though it meant nothing to her. I realized then that she likely could not read.
“It is the address of a refuge. It is maintained by my aunt, Lady Hermia March. Should you decide to leave the Box, there would be a place for you there. They could teach you to read and write, and eventually secure you a position.”
She laughed. “Doing what? Serving? Scrubbing floors and blacking grates? No, my lady, I think not. I am what I am. I’ll not change now.”
She made to hand the card back, but I refused to take it.
“You may have need of it yet. Keep it. You will always be welcome.”
She shrugged and the card went the way of the money. But I thought it quite probable that the card would find its way into a dustbin before the day was through.
I put out my hand. “Thank you, Victoria.”
She blinked, then dropped her hand into mine, shaking it slowly.
“Thank you, my lady.”
Then the training of her early years returned and she bobbed her head at me before moving back the way we had come. I watched her, for lack of anything better to do. She moved quickly, and as she reached the end of the path, a figure stepped out, a grizzled older man, dressed in an elegantly impoverished coachman’s cape. He doffed his hat to her and she gave him her basket and a smile. The hackney driver, no doubt. He walked with a hunched back and a twist-legged limp. Victoria was careful to match her pace with his, and he in turn guided her around a puddle, patting her arm solicitously. I was pleased that at least someone had a care for the poor creature. I doubted that she would come to Aunt Hermia’s refuge. And I doubted she would live out more than another half-dozen years. I heard my brother’s steps crunching softly on the graveled path as he came near.
“Oh, Val, why did I ever marry?”
“Because you loved him?” he hazarded as he sat next to me.
“Did I? I can’t remember now.”
He covered my hand with his own large, warm one. “Was it very terrible, what Cass told you?”
“Yes, actually. It was. Did you know that Edward had syphilis?”
His hand clenched mine and it was a long moment before he replied.
“No. How did Cass—”
“They made him wear condoms at the Box, to protect the prostitutes.”
“Dear God,” he said softly, giving a sad, heavy sigh. “Miss Simms is quite protective of her staff. An outbreak of syphilis, a rumour of it, can be devastating to the kind of trade she plies. Clients expect that in a certain kind of brothel, but not in Mayfair.”
“Did you know that that is why she gave Edward the box?”
“No. Like Brisbane, I thought it a token of regard. I suppose that is why there were never children.”
“Yes. Edward did not wish to infect me. Apparently his first attack was before we married. He did not realize then what it was. Afterward, when he learned of it, he quit my bed.”
We were carefully not looking at each other. I think, for all his medical training, he was embarrassed. And for my part, I only knew I could not bear to look into those wide green eyes, so like my own, and find pity. Or worse.
“Sometimes it is difficult to diagnose,” he said softly. “He might easily have mistaken the first attack for a touch of influenza. The second time, it is usually more certain. In the interim, he would not have been contagious. It was best he left your bed, you know. It is possible he would not have been able to father children in any case once the disease set in. It takes some that way.”
I think he meant to comfort me, but I barely heard him. All I knew was that the man I had grown up with, married, thought I knew, had in fact been a stranger to me.
“There is more,” I told him. He tightened his grip on my hand, mooring me to the bench. “He went to the attic.”
