Chapter 122

Splendor's heart hammered so hard from alarm that when she managed back through Topaz's bedroom door and half way along the landing, she could hardly walk further. But she needed to keep going at all costs.
"Jesus, Splen, watch me bloody foot. Bleedin' broken in' it?"
"I thought that was your leg?"
"Well, it's one of 'em. Anyway, whot does we got ter go fer? Whot's wrong wif this place? Look, I never nicked nothin' if that's whot yer think? Anythng whot's gone missin' yer can bleedin' well blame on Ferret."
"Are you going somewhere, me lady?"
Splendor's careful coif, already loosened by lugging Topaz along the landing, stood up from her head. Ferret, resplendent in her white gown and mob cap and carrying a candle, stood framed in the doorway to the servants' quarters.
"Me? I ... I ... "
"I would have helped you pack if you'd asked. But now-"
"Now you've turned in for the night, it would be an imposition?" Somehow Splendor not only managed to speak, she managed to speak calmly as if Topaz had not insulted Ferret. But maybe Ferret did have light fingers? Who was to say in this impossible world who had what? Although it was unlikely.
"Well, no. Now that I see you don't have no things with you, but you are dressed for a journey-"
Splendor's hair stood on end. My God? Was Ferret out here because she fully expected to see Splendor lugging half the house out the front door?
How could she, even if she wanted to? None of it was hers. Smoke. Ashes. A bitterly soaring funeral pyre was all she had.
"You'll ... You'll just turn back in?"
"Well, no actually, me lady. I won't turn in. I'm wondering where you're off to?"
My God? When the front door was there and she must get through it before Stillmore waltzed back home and wanted to know what the bloody hell she was playing at?She couldn't face him knowing everything she was. It was better to go naked back out into the world in what she stood up in and no more. Apart from the money for a hackney cab and Stillmore's watch.
"Well, let's just say it's not somewhere you need worry your busy head about, Mrs. Ferret. And certainly it's not somewhere you can come along with us to either."
It was better to clarify that, especially when Splendor had sort of inveigled the woman into coming to London. Mrs. Ferret set the candlestick down with a clank on the chest of drawers.
"Does His Grace know?"
"No, Mrs. Ferret, he does not. I'm quite sure that does not surprise you, so let us not pretend the fallacy that we were ever marr-"
"Well, it seems very strange to me, meanin' no affront and all."
"It is strange to me too, believe me. But there, we must all get used to a certain strangeness in life. Now then-"
She tightened her fingers around Topaz's slender waist. My God, what if all that kind me lady talk was purely a front. And even now she was killing time while she was waiting for the bailiffs she'd sent for? Because she knew who they were.
"In terms of strange, what I meant was that you should go this way if you want to avoid His Grace, me lady. Down through the servants' quarters."
Mrs. Ferret opened the door to the servants' quarters. Splendor's back snapped upright, her throat tightening. Going down there said she was guilty.Besides anyone could be down there. And then what? Stillmore would never know what had happened to her if she was lifted by the bailiffs.
"I know you must be keen to see me go, but the front door is perfectly fine, Mrs. Ferret.Ihave no reason not to go that way, or take anything that isn't mine, in case you are thinking ..."
"Well, maybe you don't-"
"Let me assure you."
"And maybe I'm bound to say, and meanin' no affront, I don't know why in the world you would go away, me lady. His Grace is difficult; we all know that, butif that is truly why you are going... "
"What other reason would there be?"
"None I can think of. No. Me lady, and again, meanin' no affront, I'm just thinkin' the back stairs would be quicker. What's more, if it is His Grace you are tryin' to avoid, for whatever reason, you'll avoid him far quicker that way, if he's on his way home and hasn't gone to some of them gamblin' dens what he frequents."
"You know that because-?"
"I just do."
It was another blow to her middle she almost couldn't sustain. She had thought it was another woman. Or his club.
"Splen ... Maybe ...Maybe we should?"
Topaz's voice was a rasp. Not for the first time, the impossibility of their situation, of her situation, slapped her in the face. The bottom line? The next move? She could face Stillmore. He might think she'd deliberately laid this baby on him to trap him, though. Then there was the fact she'd been a skivvy, and a skivvy had ruined his father.
There was no place for her in this world. How could she have ever thought there was? She straightened her shoulders, flicked the strand of hair out of eyes. As for him never knowing what happened if the bailiffs were there? Why was she leaving him without a word if she wanted him to know where she was?
"What about Chasens? Isn't he down there waiting for His Grace to return?"
"Well, he should be. Down there, that is. As to whether he's waitin', I wouldn't know. Less you call emptyin' two bottles of claret and snorin' like a pig waitin'? His nightly ritual, me lady. Better than he's upstairs in the sittin' room doin' it, though."
"Very well."
"This way, me lady."
"Yes." As if she didn't know where a servant's quarters were in a house. She'd spent years sleeping on a floor. Perhaps that's what she should have remembered when she first leaped from that window in Lanthorne Street. But she hadn't, and this was what she had come to. Lord, she would really like to believe it was the baby knotting her stomach. She was done with such fooling, though.Pray God, the way down the stairs was clear when it was a chance she had to take. "Yes. Of course."
"I'd hurry if I were you. Unless ... Unless ..."
Mrs. Ferret paused, her bony hand clasping the brass candlestick.
"Unless what?"
"Well, unless you change your mind, me lady? What else? I mean there's many slips a'tween cup and lips as me old father used to say."
"Your father too?"
"Ev'ry bloomin' day in life. I were worn out hearin' it."
"Well, I'm sure there are slips. Yes. But I can't change my mind. And I really don't want you to question me about it. Do you understand?"
"I'd hope I had better things to do, me lady. Now come. Quickly."
"Very well."