probably the question the case will turn on.’
‘Case?’
‘Miss Lane, you can surely see what will happen if the old lord dies before this question is resolved. It will end up in court, and not just any court, either. A question like this would have to be submitted to the House of Lords.’
He sounded serious again, so I had to put out of my mind the entertaining picture of their lordships in coronets and ermine debating the story I’d just been told.
‘What about the younger son? He surely wouldn’t want to see his mother and his brother put through this.’
‘I understand that there’s no great brotherly love between them. The younger boy has always been his mother’s favourite. He takes after her, while the elder brother bears some resemblance to the father and took his father’s side when husband and wife fell out.’
‘But that would make no sense at all, if he’s supposed not to be the father’s son,’ I said. ‘And if he looks like his father, surely that settles the matter?’
‘Not conclusively. There’s a fairly general family resemblance within the English aristocracy, wouldn’t you say?’
He smiled at me and flicked one of his very un-English raven ringlets back from his face with a hand that glinted with gold rings.
‘So it’s quite possible that the mother is making all this up to try to ensure that the younger one inherits,’ I said.
‘Yes, that’s the other possibility.’ Disraeli sighed. ‘It almost makes one wish that there were some way of testing the blood for paternity, the way that scientists test for acid or alkali.’
‘If such a test existed, the whole of Debrett’s would probably have to be re-written,’ I said.
I was doing some hard thinking. There was no doubt that he’d succeeded in piquing my curiosity. At that point, I’d met none of the people involved and it presented itself as an interesting puzzle.
‘If I were to investigate, who would be my client? The elder son?’
‘Not directly. I’ve been approached by a lawyer of excellent reputation who was the elder son’s trustee, up to his twenty-first birthday, and is still trustee for the younger son for another few months. He’s a family friend as well as their legal adviser. He’s very concerned that the thing should be halted in its tracks before it becomes public knowledge.’
‘But if it’s gossip already…’
‘Gossip is one thing. Lawsuits are another.’
‘So the lawyer would be paying my fee?’
‘Yes, and I don’t think there’d be argument about anything you considered reasonable.’
‘What exactly would he expect me to do?’
‘He hoped you might make the acquaintance of the lady in question and encourage her to talk to you.’
‘To a complete stranger, about the most intimate things in her life?’
‘People usually seem willing to talk to you. You have a gift.’
‘And having gained her confidence–goodness knows how–I’m supposed to report to you and the lawyer on whether she’s mad or scheming?’
‘That’s a reasonable summary. I’ll admit, we haven’t given much thought to the details. I simply promised my friend to see if I could persuade you to take an interest.’
I stood up.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, not knowing that I’d be saying the same thing to another unorthodox invitation two days later.
That was when he told me, in confidence, the family name. I left him sitting under the picture, alone for once, looking like a man who thought he’d done a good evening’s work.
I walked home that evening to Abel Yard, my dear but rackety home in Mayfair at the back of Park Lane. The front of Park Lane is one of the most desirable addresses in London, facing directly on to the eastern side of Hyde Park, with dukes by the dozen, peers ten-a-penny and the whole of society coming and going in carriages with liveried footmen on the back. But spin those mansions round, like a child with a doll’s house, and the scene at the back is altogether more domestic, with narrow slices of workshops, sheds and dwellings crammed with carriage-makers, carpenters, glaziers, bonnet trimmers, pastry cooks, cows, chickens–all the things that the great houses need for their comfort but don’t want to know about. A stone’s throw from Park Lane, in between grand Grosvenor Square and the parish workhouse, is Adam’s Mews. Carriage horses are stabled all along the cobbled street. Grooms and drivers live overhead, some in rooms so low-ceilinged that even jockey-sized people can’t stand upright in them, with hay stores in between and pulleys for drawing up hay bales from the carts that are so often blocking the narrow mews. There was one standing there that afternoon. I managed to squeeze past it without snagging my dress and went through the gateway into Abel Yard.
The carriage-mender at the entrance to the yard had the forge roaring and was hammering at something on his anvil. Chickens scratched around the door at the bottom of our staircase. The door was locked, which meant Mrs Martley was out. Good. Mrs Martley might, I suppose, be described as my housekeeper, except I’m not grand enough to have a housekeeper and she’s far too opinionated to be one. A more accurate description might be that she’s my resident respectability. A woman can’t live on her own and keep up any reputation, especially if, like me, she sometimes has gentleman callers. Mrs Martley, a retired midwife in her forties, cooked and cleaned and nagged me about everything from forgetting to hang up my bonnet to still being single at twenty-three years old. As I was fumbling in my reticule for my key, something jogged my elbow.
‘Enerunds?’
The girl Tabby had appeared from nowhere, standing there in her old stableman’s cap, her assortment of shawls that never varied, winter or summer, her stockingless feet in shapeless boots too large for her. She was, I guessed, around fourteen or fifteen years old and slept in a shed next to the cows at the end of the yard on piles of sacks and old blankets. As far as she made a living, it was doing small jobs for dwellers in the yard. She’d just asked me if I had any errands for her. I thought quickly.
‘Would you run along to the baker’s and see if there are any loaves left. Here’s sixpence. Keep the change for yourself.’
Her eyes glinted. She took the coin and ran off, boots flopping, before I could change my mind.
I found my key, unlocked the door and walked upstairs to our parlour. There was a note from Mrs Martley on the table: Have gone round to Mr Suter’s. Your supper is in the meat safe. Better still. My best friend, Daniel Suter, had married a dancer named Jenny the year before. Mrs Martley had expected me to marry him and was furious. With me, not with him. Then Jenny had done the only thing that could redeem her in Mrs Martley’s eyes and become pregnant. All Mrs Martley’s professional instincts, as well as her kindness, had been aroused. She now spent as much time at their rooms in Bloomsbury as she did at Abel Yard. I hoped Daniel and Jenny were grateful. I knew I was.
I went on, up a narrower flight of stairs, into a room that was one of the delights of my life. The afternoon sun gleamed on the white walls, scattered
