I flipped through the album hurriedly. There were more of the postcards, dozens of them, all featuring subjects of a prurient nature. But toward the back, there was something different. The first postcards had been cheeky, almost funny. Most of the young women were draped, exposing only their bosoms. The young men in the pictures were entirely clothed. One could imagine small boys tittering over them in groups behind the privy.
But the others—I stared at them, feeling faintly sick to my stomach. These were not photographs. They were drawings printed on heavy paper, the edges raw as though they had been bound once and torn free. They were thoroughly obscene, not because they were sexual, but because they were violent. They depicted things I had never imagined, never wanted to imagine could happen. I stared at them until Aquinas lifted the album gently from my hands.
“Some things are best left unseen,” he remarked, his voice cold with anger.
“I do not understand,” I said stupidly.
“You would not, my lady, because you have been raised with dignity and with grace.” He ranted softly for a moment in Italian.
“But why would Henry have these?”
Aquinas averted his eyes and I flushed painfully.
“I mean, I can imaginewhy,but where did he get them?”
Aquinas shrugged. “There are places…”
I did not press him, but simply made a note to tell Brisbane of my discovery and pressed on. There was a small viewer, of rather good quality wood, inset with a disk of glass to magnify the cards mounted behind it. It was grouped with a pack of cards, their subject matter much the same as the pictures in the album. I shoved them aside. There was nothing else of interest in the chest, and I was grateful when we moved on, closing the door behind us. The atmosphere in that room at the top of the house had grown close and airless. The hall seemed a little cooler and I breathed deeply for a moment before we moved into Morag’s room.
If Henry’s things had been a shock, Morag’s were a revelation. The small room was packed with items as a magpie’s nest, some things I had discarded, others bought with her modest wages. I recognized a vase that had been chipped slightly when one of the new maids had handled it carelessly. I had told Aquinas to dispose of it, but Morag had interceded, asking if she might keep it. I had shrugged, sublimely disinterested in what became of it. I saw now that Morag had filled it with dried grasses and placed it almost reverently on a starched mat of Brussels lace that had once been a shawl of mine. She had turned the vase so that the chipped edge did not show and tucked the snagged threads of the shawl out of sight. Everywhere I looked in that room I saw care and thrift and an almost painful determination to make good use of whatever came her way.
“I think our Morag is the proverbial thrifty Scot,” I said with a smile. “She throws nothing away.”
Aquinas was studying a framed sketch that I had come across months before. It was a courtyard, thick with fallen leaves and broken statuary. Edward had sketched it himself, before we married. It was well done, but melancholy, I always thought, and we had hung it in a back hallway and forgotten about it. I noticed it one morning, shortly after Edward died and had taken it down. I had been ready to consign it to the dustbin when Morag snatched it, saying she had a frame that needed a picture. I recognized the frame as well. It was a gaudy, heavy, scrolled thing that once belonged to Edward’s mother. I had never liked it, and when the corner had broken off, I had been delighted. Now it hung paired with the sketch, wildly inappropriate for such a humble subject, but Morag must have liked it. It took pride of place over her bed.
“She came to us with only the clothes on her back and a sewing basket,” Aquinas reminded me.
I said nothing and busied myself with her chest of drawers, feeling rather abashed. I had known what Morag’s life was like—Aunt Hermia had made certain of that. She had described for me the existence of an East End prostitute in terms that could only be described as brutally frank. I had known that Morag once lived largely on the street, sleeping in a bed only on the nights when she made enough money to pay for a doss. All of her possessions were carried on her person, tucked into pockets and sewn into hems. I had thought it would seem like paradise to her to have her own furnished room at the top of the house.
But why had I never thought to hang proper pictures on the wall or give her an unbroken vase or frame? Immediately I thought of a dozen things in Edward’s room that I could pass on to her. A few were valuable, but not wildly so, and I did not need the money they would bring. Why not give them to Morag, who would enjoy them? I turned to Aquinas, shrugging to indicate that I had found nothing.
He nodded. “All I found was a half-empty box of barley sugar sweets, for her sins.”
I preceded him out of the room, making up my mind to give her a large box of the best candy I could find. In spite of her ragged edges, Morag had been a comfort to me through my widowhood. I should make rather more of an effort to tell her so, I thought.
Next we ventured into Renard’s room, a task I was not anticipating with any great joy. His room was untidy as a lord’s, strewn with soiled clothing and discarded footwear. There were newspapers and cigar ash underfoot and a plate that had been sitting around long enough for the remains of the food to become truly revolting.
“I thought the French were supposed to be fastidious,” I complained, waving a handkerchief over my nose.
“I never thought he was French,” Aquinas replied. He had taken up an umbrella and was using it to tentatively shift the dirty garments.
“Really?” I whirled to face him, my hands full of magazines.
“The accent is too affected,tooFrench, if you take my meaning, my lady. If you will forgive the observation, he sounds very much like your ladyship’s dressmakers.”
I laughed, thinking of the Riche brothers and their exaggerated accents, their conspicuous use of simple French words in every conversation. “Of course! Where do you suppose he comes from?”
Aquinas wrinkled his nose at a particularly malodorous stocking. “Kent. I never trust a Kentish man.”
“I am sure there is a very good reason why, but I will not ask you now. I suppose his real name must be Fox, and that is why he uses that ridiculous sobriquet,” I mused, flipping quickly through the magazines. They were old ones, Edward’s castoffs. There was nothing more interesting in them than a mildly scandalous article regarding the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Aquinas had given up on the clothes and was poking about under the bed with an umbrella.
After a moment he gave a grunt and reached as far as his arm would stretch, hooking the handle of the umbrella around something. He crabbed backward, collecting a fair amount of dust and cobweb, pulling a small portmanteau with him.
I dove after it, although I cannot imagine why. Did I think I would find scissors and a glue pot secreted inside? Actually, I rather liked the idea of Renard as villain. I had always found him distasteful, and the notion of dismissing him without either pay or character was wildly appealing.
The portmanteau was locked, but it was a moment’s work to find the key, hanging on a hook behind the mirror over his washstand. Aquinas stepped back and allowed me to fit the key myself. It turned easily and I threw back the lid, feeling a surge of profound disappointment. There were only books, old ones by the look of them, with moldy, crumbling covers and the choking smell of dust and mildew.
Aquinas lifted one out and opened it. We stared at the illustration for a long moment.
