Was it Susan’s business to interfere? And what if her worstfears were true?If so, there is nothing to be done.In the end, she let the letter go out with the afternoon post.Monday it is.
Susan stopped on the stairs at the sound of insistent knocking. The footman opened the front door to a pair of constables and a captain in the Queen’s Guards. He asked for the Prince of Wales.
“He’s not in,” Susan called, descending the staircase.
The captain said, “I have urgent orders to locate His Royal Highness.”
Susan glanced at the clock. “I expect he’s … making a late-afternoon call.” Almost certainly, the prince was pursuing his latest conquest. They would find him with the twenty-year-old wife of an aging baronet. “His private secretary will help you. If you’ll follow me.”
The secretary scribbled the London address of Sir Charles and Lady Mordaunt and said, “Number six Chesham Place is just off Belgrave Square.”
“Thank you.” The captain handed the paper to one of the two constables. “Escort His Royal Highness back to Marlborough House.”
Susan asked the officer, “Can you tell us what has happened?”
“A bombing at Clerkenwell Prison, probably by the Irish Brotherhood. It destroyed half a block of houses.”
“Good God. Are there many injuries?”
“Hospitals are filling. We’re mounting additional guards at all government buildings and royal residences. I must inspect all doors and windows on the ground floor.”
“Of course,” she said.
“First, may I see the Princess of Wales?”
They made their way up the staircase. From the landing’s window, Susan spotted soldiers fanning across the front lawn, rifles at the ready.
Just after seven, Nurse Clemmie shifted an empty plate, teacup, and saucer from Julia’s desk to a tray. Her head nurse insisted that she eat something before her last round.
“All quiet and resting more or less comfortably,” Julia said, returning to her office. She deposited some soiled bandages in the bin by her door.
Clemmie nodded to Julia’s coat rack. “Then there’s no need to stay any longer. I’ll send Jackie to the corner to whistle up a cab.”
Julia, bone-weary, nodded. She stretched and flexed her fingers. “Thank goodness my grandfather and Kate pitched in.” Then Julia groaned at a rumbling commotion outside the clinic. “So much for quiet.” She called to their orderly, “Jackie, see what’s happening.”
Jackie Archer parked a rolling cart of bedding by the wall and tossed the daily paper he’d tucked under his arm onto a bench. Before he reached the door, a constable opened it and stood back. Two men staggered through the entrance, supporting an unconscious man whose heels scraped across the stone floor. There were no free beds, so Nurse Clemmie grabbed a blanket from the cart and unfurled it with a snap.
“Lay him down here.”
“My bag, Clemmie,” Julia said, sinking to her knees. She folded back the man’s ragged corduroy jacket, uncovering a shirt saturated in blood. He made no sound, and his fixed, blue-green eyes looked lifeless. Julia felt for a pulse in his neck. Clemmie handed her the stethoscope from her medical bag. She listened. Then she sat back on her heels, looked up at her nurse, and shook her head.
A man in a white barman’s apron said, “There was some high talk in the pub about the bombing. Someone spotted two Irishmen walking by the window, and the room emptied.”
The second man dragged off his rough tweed cap. “I knewhim. Kevin Leary was a warehouseman and a Paddy, all right. But a good fellow and all.”
“‘An eye for an eye for Clerkenwell,’ some bloke shouted,” the barman said.
“And we all end up blind.” Clemmie closed the dead man’s lids, brushed his cheek with the back of her fingers, and pulled a sheet over his body.
Jackie extended his hand, and Julia hauled herself up. She dropped onto the bench where the young orderly had tossed his newspaper.The Whitechapel Evening Chroniclehad rushed to print with a one-word headline in two-inch type:OUTRAGE! A short editorial set in a box called for “utmost measures to protect the British public from Irish murderers.”
Julia looked at the spreading stain where the sheet covered Kevin Leary’s once-beating heart. She thought,Who will protect the Irish from us?
CHAPTER 4
Princess Alexandra nearly canceled Saturday’s ball. She’d thought it callous to hold the entertainment the day after the Clerkenwell Prison explosion. But in the end, Alix relented. Bertie wanted to dance, and she wouldn’t deny her husband his pleasure.
Susan stood at the top of the grand staircase, watching a rising stream of ladies lift yards of peach, periwinkle, and golden tulle away from their slippers. Mostly, they kept their backs straight and their eyes forward. But occasionally, a lady glanced at the left-hand wall and its large-as-life battlefield picture. The supine corpse and dead face of the Duke of Marlborough’s aide-de-camp stared back. Susan smiled in sympathy as one young woman nearly missed her footing.
