A Flaw in the Blood (6 page)

CHAPTER TEN

T
HERE IS NOTHING MORE TRYING
to the affections of a mother than the caprice of a daughter. I say this with a rueful appreciation of Fate—having been daughter myself to Victoire, Princess of Leiningen and Duchess of Kent, and mother in turn to five girls of my own. I do not believe there is a woman now living who possesses a finer sense of the emotions that tremble between two such females: one in full-blown rebellion against the maternal efforts of the other to guide, to rear, to direct. I considered of this as I studied my second daughter around the hour of ten o'clock, as she sat with bowed head in St. George's Chapel of a Sunday morning—the holiest place in Windsor. She was weeping for her Papa. The sight of such misery wrung my grieving heart.

“Alice.”

The name floated beneath the Gothic architraves, the leaded windows transmuting the wretched December day to a light more infinite and sublime.

Her head was cradled in her hands, her slight frame already swathed in black—a summer mourning gown she'd last worn for my mother. Alice looked crushed and frail, as though she had been whipped to submission by an overpowering master; it was brutal to disturb such suffering, even by whispering her name.

Alice is eighteen—a good and affectionate soul, although perhaps a little spoilt by dear Albert. She is engaged to marry Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, and will too soon escape my influence forever. In the short time that is left to me I must endeavour to correct those little flaws that might naturally result from a too-careless indulgence, lest her husband be appalled at her headstrong nature. Albert was undoubtedly appealing to the child, particularly after Vicky went off to her Prussian marriage—but I may say her father delighted perhaps
too much
in their conversations. Alice is clever, you see; and Albert encouraged her to put herself forward to an unbecoming degree.

“Alice!”

She straightened—her head lifted from her black-gloved hands—her crinoline swung, bell-like, as she rose from her knees—eyes trained on the altar. Albert was not yet there, although it seemed as though he ought to be—arranged on a pyre like a barbaric lord of old.
My burnt offering.
My Beloved's body still lay in the Blue Room, where the Royal Valets—MacDonald and Löhlein—were bathing and dressing him like a doll. I would
not think
of the undertakers. Nor of funerals in general. I would make no arrangements. Bertie would, of course, handle everything.

Alice walked slowly by me, her expression blank, her arms stiff at her sides, to the chapel door. She hesitated at the threshold, but did not turn or glance back; she merely quitted the place without a word. Wonderingly, I followed.

“Alice!”

The black figure halted. “You wished to speak to me, Mama?”

“Indeed.”

I longed to take the dear child in my arms, to mourn with her over the loss of her Sainted Papa—but Alice looked as approachable as marble. Impossible to caress. Her fortitude was all that was admirable during the last days of Albert's illness. She haunted his rooms, followed in his steps as he moved sleepless through the Castle at night—played beloved German airs upon the piano to ease his fevered brain. But for all her goodness, I sense in Alice an unfortunate tendency to
obstinacy
. When she might have served as prop and comfort to her Mama, she prefers to ally herself with the younger children—Leopold, for example, upon whom she foolishly dotes.
And
Louise.
And
Helena. They refer to me as “Eliza” behind my back; Alice is the prime mover in all my children's conspiracies.

“Pity your poor Mama, my child,” I began, “and do your utmost to console her—though none
can,
considering the
All-in-All
I have lost.”

“You have my pity, Mama,” she returned dutifully. “Of that you may be certain.”

“Pray sit down, dear child.”

Near at hand was a settee, placed in an alcove of the wall; after an instant's hesitation, Alice bowed her head. She sat.

“I am so very tired,” she murmured.

“Naturally.” The word had more asperity than I intended. “You have sacrificed yourself perhaps too much for poor Papa—waiting upon him tirelessly, as though there were not a household of servants and doctors at Windsor, possessed of far greater experience and wisdom! But your vigilance could not keep Death from the door, my unfortunate Alice.”

“No,” she agreed. “Quite useless. All my love and anxiety for him—”

“I notice that your brother is now resident in the Castle. Who summoned him from Cambridge, pray?”

She raised her head. “I did, Mama. I could not allow Bertie to remain ignorant of Papa's crisis.”

“
You
could not allow!” Overwhelmed by a sick feeling of despair and helplessness—uncertain what
could,
or
ought,
to be revealed to such an innocent of her brother's moral lapse—I was, for an instant, deprived of speech. “Are you unaware, Alice, that it is because of
Bertie
—his transgressions, the severe anxiety his weak character has caused—that your Papa lost all will to live? You did very wrong in summoning him. But for Bertie's presence in the Blue Room—”

“—Papa might have rallied?” Her lip trembled. “Good God, Mama, when will you see the truth? Papa has been ill for weeks—months, perhaps!”

“Your father was well enough before the Prince of Wales broke his heart,” I cried. “And then
you
must dig his grave for him!”

Alice's hands twisted convulsively in her lap, but her eyes remained fixed; she did not break down.

“I hope you will behave with greater modesty, in future,” I said lamely. “There is a degree of self-consequence in all your actions, Alice, that cannot be considered either proper or becoming. I shudder to think how your future husband may remark upon it.”

“Yes, Mama.”

I hesitated; there was much I yearned to know. And yet Alice is such a difficult creature—so aloof, so acute in her understanding . . .

“You were almost the last to attend him,” I observed. “You were by his side from morning until night. Never, from this day until the hour of your death, my dear, shall you have the slightest call to reproach yourself. You may be happy in the knowledge that you did your Duty.”

“Yes. I have that comfort.”

“He was so cold at the end,” I murmured. “His hands, his face, almost blue. As though the midnight of Heaven had wrapped itself already around him.”

Alice looked at me finally. I sank down beside her, clasped her hands in mine.

“And he whispered in your ear. German, of course. A few words, I think?”

Abruptly, she rose.

“Dear child, what did he tell you? Did he say anything of . . . the family? Anything, perhaps, of . . .
me
?”

Alice's eyelids flickered. “There are other people in the world, Mama, besides yourself. Though you can never be brought to see it.”

Such cruelty, at an hour when too much has already been torn from me! I rose and faced her.

“Pray consider, Alice. Do you think it is
quite
what Beloved Papa would wish—that you should
refuse to confide
in your suffering parent?”

She sighed, and closed her eyes. “Papa's words were utterly unintelligible. The merest ravings. Question me as you choose, Mama, you shall never divine his meaning.”

She stepped deliberately around me and moved off without haste, unrepentant and unassailable, in the direction of her private apartments.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T
HE TENEMENT STAIRS LED UP
to the garrets, and Fitzgerald took them two at a time, Georgie's medical bag in his right hand. She followed, her skirts bunched in her fists, her breathing audible and rapid. She would, of course, be fighting the iron grip of stays around her rib cage; it was a small mercy, Fitzgerald reflected, that she hadn't worn a crinoline that morning. She kept a kind of work uniform—of which the French twilled silk was one—of neat walking dresses designed to be worn over petticoats rather than the swaying bell of whalebone and stiffening; but all those layers were a treacherous impediment to haste. How would she navigate the roof ? And was she in slippers or boots?

The staircase ended abruptly in a landing.

Three doors gave off the hallway beyond—and the farthest one was ajar.

Somewhere below them, a shout went up—a curse of pure rage. The man with the cosh had found Button Nance—and from the squeal that followed, he hadn't liked how the whore answered his questions.

“Patrick—”

“You're not to go back.” He gripped Georgie's hand, ignored her frown of protest, and pulled her through the doorway.

There were at least a dozen people in the shadowy room. A few women, a clutch of children, an elderly couple huddled by a smoking fire. Barely a stick of furniture, and the single dormer window had rags stuffed where glass should be. These were sodden with sleet and the air was cold enough to see your breath.

“Oi!” a woman shrieked. “Whaddya think yer about, then? This ain't a flophouse; you can't bring yer fancy-piece 'ere!”

The idea of Georgiana Armistead as prostitute would normally have fired Fitzgerald's tongue, but he merely brushed his way past the woman's upraised fist, and made for the dormer window. He threw wide the casement.

“Can we get out?” Georgie asked.

“It's good and steep, but we've no choice. We'll have to slide.” He scanned the tiles; they were slick with slush and treacherously cracked. Where the downslope of the garret met the upslope of the neighbouring hovel, a guttered roof joint ran between. Georgie would find safer footing there; he just hoped it did not lead to a sheer drop—he had no way of knowing, and no time to reconnoiter.

“Didn' you hear me?
Get out!
” the woman shrieked in his ear.

“Aye, and we're just going.” He reached for his purse and found her a shilling—enough to cover her share of the rent for a month. “Take this for your trouble. Now, up you get, Georgie!”

He put his hands together and she stepped into them, hoisting herself onto the sill. Then she swung her heavy skirt through the window, while all the children in the place ran up to Fitzgerald to tug on his arm and beg for coppers. He scattered coins at his feet and told the largest boy, “Close the door and bolt it, there's a good lad.” Then he followed Georgie out onto the tiles, sliding toward the roof joint.

She was already at the bottom, picking herself up and brushing at the back of her fine dress with a quarrelsome expression. The silk was in a fair way to being ruined. She glared at his heels as they slid into the gutter, spraying her boots with filth.

“Was this
really
necessary, Patrick?”

Before he could answer, a cosh shattered the frame of the window above their heads and fragments of wood rained down on the icy tiles. Georgie turned without another word and began to inch along the gutter, toward the edge of the roof and whatever lay below it.

Fitzgerald thrust himself to his feet. He stumbled after her, waiting for the impact of another body behind him—when it came, he looked back and saw the ruffian with the cosh.

The garret room was at the very end of the hallway; there were no more windows giving out onto this section of roof. The gutter ran toward St. Giles Street in one direction, and in the other, toward the warren of alleys behind it. Georgie was headed away from the street, deeper into the rookery maze. But when Fitzgerald looked ahead, he saw she had come to a complete halt—poised on the edge of nothing.

A rough hand snatched at his shoulder. He lost his balance, feet flying out from under him, and fell backwards. Georgie's medical bag sailed out of his grasp—and it was probably this sound, of the bag bursting open and the instruments clattering across the tiles, that brought her head around in search of him. Fitzgerald heard her yell—not a high-pitched woman's scream, but a guttural, savage sound wholly unlike the Georgie he knew. He wanted to tell her to save herself—to get away while the tough was on top of him—but the man's hand was at his throat. And then the cosh rose wildly above him—

Fitzgerald pulled his knees up, hard, into his attacker's groin and dodged sideways, the cosh smashing into the tiles where his head had been moments before. The man toppled. Fitzgerald rolled upright and leaned on his enemy's spine, taking great gasps of air through his grateful throat. The torso beneath him was broad, heavily muscled—the frame of a man who moved stone for a living, or hauled ropes, or placed a value on punishing strength in his line of work. There was the hand that held the cosh—Fitzgerald grasped the weapon and pulled back hard, as though it were a lever, shouting
Georgie, go!
while his enemy grunted and cursed his hatred of Fitzgerald and heaved himself upright so that Fitzgerald was straddling him now, the man corkscrewing like a maddened horse, the powerful wrist snapping in Fitzgerald's grasp and the cosh sailing free of the nerveless fingers—

“Patrick!” Georgie cried in warning. “Behind you!”

Of course there would be more men; he'd counted six. A few had probably posted themselves at the building's front and back doors, but the rest would be coming through the shattered window right behind their leader, and probably armed. He tossed the cosh in Georgie's direction, then lunged from the man's back toward the glint of metal in the gutter—one of Georgie's knives, from her scattered bag. The creature beside him doubled up in pain, clutching his broken wrist. The scalpel slid into Fitzgerald's palm, cold and wet.

He seized his attacker's head, pulled it back, and thrust the edge of the scalpel against his throat.

“You soddin' little Paddy,” the man gasped, his fingers clawing at Fitzgerald's arm.

The second tough was almost upon them, but he stopped short when he heard his mate's bubbling gasp.

“If you come any closer, he dies,” Fitzgerald warned, fingers clenched in the man's dirty black hair. “And then
you
die. Understand?”

The second man glanced sideways, no doubt calculating the distance from one roof to another, or searching for a broken tile he could hurl at Fitzgerald's head; over his shoulder, Fitzgerald saw a third figure easing across the garret windowsill. His grasp on his prey tightened, and the hum of violence sang in his ears, a familiar hymn as carnal as sex. The knife edge nicked the throat beneath his fingers and the throat whimpered faintly.

Georgie advanced, the cosh raised high, and said in that same guttural snarl, “We'll cut his neck and call you murderer. A gentleman's word against a labourer's. Are you prepared to hang, my friend?”

The man inched backwards, his eyes widening; then he turned and stumbled toward the garret window, kicking and clawing his way back up the tiles.

“Who sent you?” Fitzgerald demanded, in his enemy's ear. “Who pays your wage?”

An oath spat through his clenched fingers; nothing more.

“Patrick, they'll be back,” Georgie said.

He released the black hair and forced the man beneath him, onto the tiles. Then he tore the cosh from Georgie's grasp and delivered a punishing blow to the back of the skull. The solid bulk went limp.

“Pray God you didn't kill him,” Georgie said faintly.

“Why? He'd have killed
me
. He'd have killed
both
of us and left our bodies on the roof. Just as he left Sep to die in chambers.”

She did not reply, her face as white as paper.

At the edge of the icy gutter, Fitzgerald knelt carefully and peered over the edge, senses swimming. He was unaccustomed to the eerie pitch, the irregular angles of this view of the world; he drew back, and waited for his head to steady.

“It's a sheer drop.”

Georgie's teeth were chattering with cold and tension, but she had retrieved her bag of surgical tools. “I refuse to retrace my steps. I will not walk past that man. I'm a
doctor,
Patrick—to leave him in that condition, in this weather,
knowing
what the result might be—”

“Your scruples do you credit,” Fitzgerald said dryly. “His men would be waiting for us inside, in any case. Georgie, that fellow called me a
Paddy
.”

“It's hardly the first time someone has.”

“That's not what I mean. I hadn't spoken yet—he had no thought for my accent—and it's faint enough after all these years. He came
looking
for an Irishman. He was sent here. By whom?”

“He probably followed
you
from Great Ormond Street.” She brushed the sleet from her cheek impatiently. “No doubt these people are watching Septimus's house—to learn whether he dies.”

It was possible, Fitzgerald owned. And yet—

He glanced back, afraid of what he might see coming through the broken window, and said suddenly, “Would it cheer you to know, Georgiana, that our friends from the garret are already picking your man's pockets?”

She turned swiftly, saw the clutch of women and children hunkered around the body. “Without even pausing to know if he's dead or alive?”

“You might check his pulse yourself.” Fitzgerald rose and brushed fragments of ice and slate from his trousers. “That lot would never be out here unless the gang had fled. Which means we can go home in peace.”