A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock #1)(20)

Charlotte passed Cavendish Square, the trees and shrubs of which were dingy with soot. The air in London had always been terrible, but far more so for a woman who must walk all day long than one who had a carriage at her disposal. By midday, as she stood before the mirror in her new room at Mrs. Wallace’s, the top of her ruffled collar was already marked by a ring of grime on the inside. She didn’t want to think of its advanced state of soil after several more hours out and about.

Turning onto Wimpole Street, she made a stop at Atwell & Dewsbury, Pharmaceutical Chemists. Mrs. Wallace had recommended the place for the purchase of incidentals. Charlotte had visited the shop earlier in the day to buy bathing soap and matches—and to take a look at the selection of books that customers could borrow for a penny apiece.

But of course she hadn’t thought of everything. This time Mr. Atwell kindly sold her some stationery. And a package of one hundred perforated pieces of tissue for the water closet, wrapped in brown paper and without either of them ever mentioning it by name.

As she stepped out of the shop, a dapper older gentleman sauntered past on the opposite side of the street. He looked so much like Sir Henry she came to a dead halt.

Had she been angrier at him or herself? The latter, most likely. Livia had warned her repeatedly not to trust their father’s promises. But she had been deaf to those warnings—willfully deaf. Not that she thought Sir Henry the kind of paragon he most emphatically wasn’t, but because she believed that her good opinion and good will meant something to him.

They probably did, but not enough, in the end, to make any difference.




Mrs. Wallace’s place was around the corner. When Charlotte walked in, most of the boarders were milling about in the common room, socializing before supper.

“I’ll bet the girl’s mum is having a right laugh this minute,” said a vivacious brunette. “Goodness knows I would, if the old woman what caught my daughter and acted so hoity-toity about it is found dead the next morning.”

Charlotte’s ears heated as if a curling iron had been held too close.

“You don’t think the girl’s family had something to do with it?” said another woman. She was no more than twenty-one and looked excitable.

“Which old woman?” asked Charlotte.

The brunette turned toward her. “You must be the new girl. Miss Holmes, is it?” she asked, her demeanor friendly.

“Yes. Nice to meet you, Miss . . .”

“Whitbread. Nan Whitbread, and this is Miss Spooner.”

They all shook hands.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt, but what you were talking about sounded fascinating.”

“Oh, it is. My cousin works at one of the fancy dressmakers on Regent Street,” said Miss Whitbread. “And she kept hearing about it all day from the clients. They weren’t talking to her, of course, but among themselves, about the lady what caught her married son having a go at this young lady, hung the young lady out to dry, and then woke up dead the next morning.”

Lady Shrewsbury was dead? Dead?

“Oh, my,” Charlotte mumbled. “Just like that?”

“That’s what they say. Can’t remember the name for it, the condition what makes you bleed in the head.”

“An aneurysm of the brain?” Charlotte supplied.

“Sounds about right. First-rate story, ain’t it? Oh, I mean, isn’t it?” Miss Whitbread lowered her voice. “Mrs. Wallace don’t like us using ‘ain’t’ around here. Says it isn’t ladylike.”

“And if you got a young man who’s sweet on you, don’t ever mention it to her—or Miss Turner,” added Miss Spooner. “We aren’t supposed to have any gentlemen friends at all.”

“’Specially not a young man like Miss Spooner’s. He takes her out to tea shops and feeds her suppers,” said Miss Whitbread with a wink.

“Shh,” warned Miss Spooner, laughter and alarm alike dancing in her eyes. “Speak of the devil.”

Mrs. Wallace came into the common room. She was in her mid-thirties, a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a clear look of authority. Behind her followed a thin, short woman who must be at least five years older but was obviously a lieutenant, rather than the captain. Miss Turner then.

Mrs. Wallace greeted her boarders and introduced Charlotte. The company duly proceeded to the dining room, where Miss Turner said grace, and the women helped themselves to a supper of boiled bacon cheek and vegetable marrow.

Charlotte’s meals were very important to her. But this evening she noticed nothing of the food she put in her mouth. With half an ear she listened to Miss Whitbread tell her about the rules and customs of the house. The only question she asked was, “Do you think I’d be allowed to go out and buy a newspaper?”

“Oh, you don’t need to. Mrs. Wallace don’t like any of us going out after supper so she has the evening paper delivered.”

When Charlotte reached the common room after supper, Miss Turner already had the evening paper in hand. She read aloud from its pages as the other women knitted, mended hose, wrote letters, or played games of draughts.

“Now listen to this advert, ladies. Seeking, sincerely and urgently, girl infant left behind on the doorsteps of Westminster Cathedral, on the night of the twenty-third of November, 1861.” Miss Turner peered over the top of the paper at the other occupants of the room. “This is why you must always be careful and not be led astray, or the same could happen to you—become a sorry woman looking for her child twenty-five years too late.”