"What did he do?"
"He passed me a sheet of paper and there, written small, were three names. Of course I knew what they were."
"The prisoners for the test?"
He rolls onto his back, one arm still beneath her. "Exactly. I have no idea how he got them, or why he gave them to me, unless he thought he was going to ingratiate himself." He sniffs. "Or create trouble for me if they were found. He wanted me to write him a character for when he's set free, and I said no."
"Oh darling, some people love their own cleverness and think others will be impressed. If he found out who was going to be brought in, maybe he couldn't keep it to himself. Most likely that's how he got caught in the first place—being clever and wanting others to know it."
"He's not the showy sort. He has this way of seeming smaller than he is—I thought he was much shorter than me, but he isn't."
"That's one way of slipping beneath notice, isn't it? He could have committed the most atrocious murder and no one would have suspected him—and finally he couldn't bear for his perfect murder not to have been noticed." She laughs softly.
"You don't know Flyte. I think he's more the sort who takes a few shillings here, a few there, for years." He looks at her, but she's not watching him anymore. Instead her eyes are on the fire and she feels stiff in his arms. She shivers. "Poor darling," he says, and pulls the sheets up over them both, though he is still sweating.
"I miss our life in Paris," she tells him in a thin voice.
He lifts himself onto one elbow and kisses her shoulder. "Me too. But I can't see when we'll be able to go back. Not for the time being."
She twists around. "I don't want to live in this city, this house. It's—it's sucking the life out of me." Her voice is trembling and she stares into his face, shadows making her cheeks look hollow and her eyes sunken.
"Mina," he whispers. "Oh no, it won't be like that. I promise it won't." He follows the bones of her face with his fingers and she closes her eyes.
He doesn't tell her what he is thinking: that to return would be a step backwards, that in Paris there will always be the famous Bertillon, and no one will ever surpass him. But in England, who is there? As yet anthropometry doesn't have one star in its firmament that shines more brightly than the rest. There is Sir Jonathan at the British Institute of Anthropology, but from what Dr. Taylor said, he is beginning to lose his hold on the institute. What could one expect from a man in his seventies? And then there is Dr. Taylor himself, with his smooth, round chin and his plump cheeks, and his way of peering through his spectacles. He is a charming man, yet is he the man to guide the future of anthropometry and all it could mean for England? Robert stares into the shadows of the room and, for a few minutes, imagines himself making speeches, appointing committees, speaking to Parliament even. And why not? Why not him?
Soon the cold air seeps beneath the sheets he has pulled over them, and he sits up to arrange the blankets. Mina seems to be asleep. Such anxiety at the idea of staying in London—it's natural. This is the city in which she lived with her first husband. Not a happy marriage, one that haunts her, though he's never persuaded her to tell him why. He leans forward now and presses a kiss into the soft skin of her neck.
In a few hours, the funeral. A quiet affair with a few family friends, a colleague or two of Henry's from years ago, yet the prospect of it makes him rub his temples with his fist. He will have to introduce Victoria. After that, how will they be able to rid themselves of her, even with proof that she is not who she claims?
Poor Henry. He was coming home for Mother, but it is he who is being buried. "God help us," Robert mutters, and Mina turns over, her back to him now. He presses his body to hers, belly to back, knees tucked behind knees, and cups her breast in his hand.
Sometime after eleven o'clock, when the house is quiet, he falls asleep still holding her.
She stares into the hearth, where the embers glow a dangerous red. Eventually the gentle wash of Robert's breathing slows. Usually it is he who moves away, but tonight she cannot bear the weight of his arm on her chest. Carefully she lifts it and rolls away to where the sheets are cold.
Downstairs the clock chimes. Midnight already. Only ten more hours until the funeral, but it's not that that occupies her thoughts. Robert had said, "You don't know Flyte." Those words have been nudging her away from sleep.
Oh, yes, she knows Flyte. She knows him only too well. At least he has not yet been released, because the thought of him being a free man makes the world around her seem fragile as glass, as though she might fall through it and be lost.
Chapter 12
H
ere, ma'am," Jane says for the second time, and holds the dress ready—a dull black bombazine with black trimming. Everything about it is black, like a hole from which no light will ever escape. Fitting her into it is not an easy task, for the widow flutters and twitches, and when she does look at Jane it is with resentment.
Jane nearly apologizes. For being in this room at all. For seeing this woman, whose life has broken apart, in her undergarments— those, too, marked by her loss with small black ribbons. For being the one to have to persuade her into the deep mourning she will wear every day for the next year. Leaning towards Victoria, she closes the fasteners one by one. There is an awful dry smell about the dress, of dye perhaps, as though it reeks of death. Above the high collar the widow's face looks as small and pale as the kernel of a nut newly cracked, not yet ripe for the world.
From downstairs Jane hears the clock strike. "If you don't mind, ma'am." She points to the stool in front of the dressing table. The widow almost starts, looks down at it in confusion. "For your hair, ma'am." And Jane reaches for the brushes.
The widow sits like a nervous bird, on the very edge of the chair, and fidgets as Jane pulls the brush through her hair.
"How would you like it done up, ma'am?" Jane tries a smile in the mirror, but the widow isn't looking at her. Anyway, it would not have been enough to cover up the fact that she has little idea what she is doing, that the only way she knows how to style a lady's hair is like Mrs. Robert's.
"You've seen how I wear it." She drops her voice. "Haven't you?"
"Not really, ma'am. I could try, though."
"Yes." She blinks. "You could try, I suppose."
So Jane brushes the hair and divides it and sets to twisting the strands together and pinning them up. The widow watches her, so small and hunched on her stool that she looks as though she will topple off if Jane pulls too hard. She fiddles with the bodice of her dress, as though she never learnt to sit still.
When Jane has finished she stands to the side to see her in the mirror. "It's not quite what you're used to," she says.
The widow looks weighed down by the hair piled onto the crown of her head. She raises her hands to her cheeks. Her breath seems to catch, and she plucks out the pins and drops them onto the dressing table in front of her. "I'm sorry," she says, "I'm so sorry." Then she rests her hands on its edge and lets herself cry. She says something under her breath, and Jane steps forward. She hears, "I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this."
"Come on now. You don't want to be late."
The widow sits up at that. She closes her eyes, then, crying still, runs her fingers through her hair to rid it of Jane's work.
"We have to hurry, ma'am."
It only takes a minute or two for her to wind her hair into a tight ball that she pins to the back of her head. In the mirror she finds Jane's eyes. "Don't worry," she blurts out. "I'll say you did it for me. They won't know."
"Thank you, ma'am." She doesn't know what else to say.
On the table is a box holding a jet necklace. Jane loops it around the widow's neck. Then she busies herself with the room, though there is precious little to tidy—everything was already put away when she stepped in here half an hour ago, even the covers pulled up on the bed. But she doesn't want to look at the widow, who has a way of staring into Jane's face as though waiting for something, and Jane doesn't know what that might be.
When she does look back the widow is still at the dressing table. Crying has dappled her skin red, and against the black of her dress the marks stand out vividly. She is trying to calm herself, her chin high but twitching as she holds herself still, her mouth a little open like a split shoe. She's all angles—arms stiff, neck stiff, her movements jarring. It's hard to watch her. Soon the clock downstairs sounds the hour and Jane helps the widow to her feet. "It's time," she says softly, and leads her over to the door, and to the stairs beyond, then down to the carriage that will take her to Henry Bentley's funeral.
M
ina stands at the window. More snow is falling, fragments of white scattering over the black of carriages and coats and hats. You'd think the whole city had been bereaved, the men especially. All Robert had to do for mourning was to add a crape band to his hat and buy himself black gloves. As for her, she'll be in this black dress for months. She leans closer to the glass and looks up into the dizzying swirl of flakes. A few miles away this snow is falling on the freshly dug earth of Henry Bentley's grave. By now the halfdozen mourners who'd braved the wind cutting through the cemetery must be home, bellies full of pie and brandy, huddled by their fires yet still unable to rid themselves of this day's chill. What, she wonders, did they think of Victoria? A widowed bride who in the church laid her head on the coffin as though asking forgiveness, who turned away even the most gentle question by bowing her head? Most likely she merely seemed overcome with grief. And now that she has been seen, how much more difficult it will be to stop her from taking Henry's money and vanishing.
Cold air is sliding down the glass—Mina can feel it, leaking down and pooling by her ankles. She stands there anyway, her breath clouding the glass, and watches the street. To lose the money—to be trapped in this city—she would have to always be on her guard. How long might she manage it? There must be some other way. Yet what are they to live on? Robert is a sensible man, and that might be their downfall, for how is she to convince him to let drop so sensible a plan as finding work here?
A charwoman hurries by in a shawl, three small boys in caps run up the pavement, a man in a great coat leans against the railings of the house opposite with a tail of tobacco smoke flaring from his mouth—the man who is often there, doing nothing but watching. Then she sees him. He steps down from a carriage and looks up at the house. Even from this distance she'd know him anywhere—the round jaw, the flushed, full cheeks, the way he stands with both hands gripping his cane and his shoulders back. David Popham. At the church she'd turned and he'd nodded to her, sitting at the back by himself. Later he'd made a show of coming forward to offer his condolences, though there was something else in his smile, a look of self-satisfaction. He held onto her hand too long. She had to pull it away, and a tremble of fear ran through her. Even Robert felt it and tucked her arm more tightly under his. She murmured, "So cold in here," and he said, "Yes, a miserable place."
Now here he is again, and she wonders if he will have the effrontery to knock and leave his card. She leans so close to the window that her hair sticks to the damp glass. Down on the pavement he cocks his head and lets his gaze run over the front of the house. Surely he can't suspect that she is watching. Nonetheless, she flinches back.
There's a knock at the front door. A few seconds pass, just long enough for him to leave his card, then the door thuds closed. He is gone. Even he would not insist on being admitted when the household is so newly in mourning.
She walks over to the fire and waits for a tap at the door. Sarah.
"A card, ma'am. Mr. David Popham."
"You may leave it on the table."
"Yes, ma'am." She lays the card on the side table, then makes her way back to the door with a swing in her hips.
Mina looks down at the card as though she cannot bear to touch it. Then, with the tips of her fingers, she turns it over. There is nothing written on the back. Just leaving the card says all he wants to tell her: that he knows where she is, that he has found her out. She was certain it was so—that meeting in Mortimer's, the way he so quickly apologized for his mistake—of course that was all for show. Now all she can do is wait for him to make a move. He is not a clever man, but he is persistent, and he thinks enough of himself that he is unlikely to let an opportunity for revenge slip out of his grasp.
Damn him. She closes her fingers on his card, though the sharp corners of the pasteboard dig into her palm. Damn him. She lifts her hand to throw the bent card into the fire, but she stops herself. Anger will not protect her, only information will, and the capacity to think. So she sits down and flattens the card against her knee. It shows his name, his address, his club. Maybe he meant for her to know that he has moved, for her to find him. If she is clever she will be able to use this information against him. There must be a way.
The fire crackles and spits—snow coming down the chimney, dripping onto the hot coals. She sits and watches it. For a fortnight she is safe—they will not go out, they will not have guests, they will be shut up in the house to grieve. But after that—if only they could return to Paris. He wouldn't be able to reach her there. However, there is the matter of the failing Mrs. Bentley, who apparently is in no hurry to follow her son to the graveyard, and the newly widowed Mrs. Bentley, who has taken to her bed this afternoon, and who is in no hurry to leave this household either. Mina presses her hands hard onto her knees and forces herself to sit still because, at this moment, she would rather burst down the hallway and out into the street, and the snow, and the cold, than sit here in this room, waiting for whatever fate will bring her.