McGhie’s grip tightens. ‘The McKenzies are the greatest thieves of all, you little idiot. Your mistress will be lucky not to get the noose by the time we’re finished.’
Eleanor lets out a squeal. ‘No, sir!’
The gentleman from Kew nudges McGhie, who recovers his temper and lets go of Eleanor’s wrist so suddenly that she almost trips. ‘Now, now,’ he says, in a kindly tone; the voice he uses when she meets him on her monthly day. ‘We’ve no interest in stealing your mistress’s possessions. Nor those of her great aunt.However, you’re doing vital work for an extremely important cause, and we can’t be without your help, Miss Thale. Indeed, we’ve paid for it.’
Eleanor’s shoulders lower, slightly.
‘You’ll come tomorrow. And we’ll raise your fee to two shillings per visit, provided you deliver. That means details, do you hear?’
Eleanor nods and tries not to show she’s still unwilling.
‘You better get back.’ He waves her away.
As she rounds the corner of the church, she hears Mr McGhie say ‘If she doesn’t come, we must do for her, Harry.’ Eleanor picks up her pace. The tears are real now.
At the graveside, the burial is all but over. The minister says a final prayer as Eleanor slips through the crowd, disappearing behind Cook’s substantial frame. The assembled voices murmur, ‘Amen,’ and Eleanor wonders if such a holy word might set the lips of a sinner such as herself alight. She jumps when one of the silent maids lays her hand on the arm of Eleanor’s coat. ‘Are you all right?’ the girl whispers. She’s been crying too. Eleanor nods. People are asking Dr Anderson to introduce them to Mrs Moore. One or two of the old ladies snivel quietly. One of them assures Mrs Moore that her aunt’s body will be safe. She points at a round watchtower at the edge of the graveyard. ‘No more of that nasty Burke and Hare business,’ she says. Another old lady cuts in, ‘Don’t scare the girl, Mary. No resurrection man wants a tough old bird such as you or I or dear Miss McKenzie for that matter. All that was years ago, Mrs Moore, and the man was hanged.’
‘Only a few years,’ the other old lady objects.
Mrs Moore looks alarmed for she had not considered the possibility of Aunt Eilidh’s body being exhumed. ‘Don’t think on it, my dear,’ the first old lady assures her despite having brought up the matter and slowly, everyone makes their way back to the carriages lining King Stables Road. Tall holly bushes linethe path, spread like ornate, fringed umbrellas. The staff turn to walk home and Eleanor waits for her mistress at the cypress by the gate. Mr McGhie and the gentleman from Kew have disappeared. She helps her mistress up and the driver starts back up the hill.
‘Ma’am, there’s something I must tell you,’ Eleanor says stoutly. The words pop out of her mouth like a strained stay that suddenly unfastens. She’s seen rats in the trap and she will not die that way. Eleanor knows Mrs Moore will be furious. She’ll be dismissed on the spot. But still, if she can get back to Wimbledon, her father will take her in. She wonders how long it’ll take to walk there. She has the two shillings the gentleman gave her the other day. If she’s prudent that should buy food along the way. The men won’t miss her till tomorrow; if she’s lucky not till nighttime. She can get a head-start this afternoon. She might even hitch a ride along the road.
Araminta grasps the girl’s hand. ‘What would I do without you, dear Eleanor? You’re such a help,’ she says warmly. ‘I’ve nobody in Scotland who knows me half so well. I’m lucky to have you to keep me steady.’
Eleanor’s mouth closes. The mistress squeezes her fingers fondly and the maid’s heart sinks. She feels wretched about the times she sneaked out to meet the gentleman she now knows is called Harry; the little box of shillings hidden behind the skirting in her room upstairs in Richmond. Whatever are the gentlemen up to? What use could a list be of the callers either here or at the London house? A note of what the mistress is reading? The contents of the love notes Mr Moore leaves for his wife occasionally, which Eleanor has the boot boy in Richmond read out on the pretext of sheer nosiness? It makes no sense. These are bad men but she can’t simply abandon Mrs Moore. Not after what she’s just said.
‘When shall we return to London, ma’am?’ she manages, hoping that the answer is a day very soon. Tomorrow perhaps.
Araminta looks wistfully out of the carriage as they cross Princes Street. ‘I’m not sure,’ she says. ‘There are one or two matters that may take a little time.’
And with that the carriage pulls up at the house. Araminta gets down and lets herself in the front door.
Eleanor lingers on the flagstones, watching Brodie, Douglas, Cook and the maids walking homewards down the west side of the square. The maids’ eyes are fringed pink. Cook’s gaze is set hard. Mr Brodie appears devoid of all feeling as if he might do anything, perhaps even kill a man. Eleanor sighs. She waits and takes the basement stairs with the rest of them, as if she’s walking to her own execution.
‘Did you see that girl?’ the toothless kitchen maid whispers to Douglas. ‘In the graveyard. Her skin?’
Cook overhears and pulls up the maid’s manners. ‘The Black lass?’ she snaps.
The kitchen maid looks bashful.
‘She’s working on Randolph Crescent in the McLean residence as a ladies’ maid. Name of Malvina,’ Cook adds.
‘She talks funny,’ the girl bursts out.
‘She’s from the colonies. We’ll treat her the same as any other lass,’ Cook directs briskly.
‘Indeed,’ Mr Brodie manages.
Malvina is said to be the love child of a cousin of Miss McLean. She arrived from the West Indies only a few weeks before.
‘No love about it,’ Cook sniffs, as the staff hang up their coats. She’s a wise, old bird. Eleanor wonders what Cook would do if she found herself in this kind of fix, but she doubts that Cook has ever accepted a nefarious shilling, never mind two. The bell in the drawing room rings and Brodie sets off to see what the mistress requires. Cook removes a clove-studded ham she’s beensteeping in honeyed cider onto a wide, porcelain achette, for she will not have her kitchen caught short. There’s a dead chicken hanging in the pantry and a grouse ready to be plucked.
‘If the mistress has an appetite, it’ll likely be for cold cuts,’ Cook says. ‘And perhaps a scoop of crowdie.’
Eleanor, realising there’s nothing for her to do in the kitchen, goes upstairs with a heavy heart.
Chapter Nine
