Chapter Four
Avoiding the front door, she entered the house by the steps down to the basement entering via the kitchen, and startling the maidservant, who said, “Oy, Miss Tessa, watch out! There’s a nasty little mongrel follerin’ you.
G’wan, ya filthy little rat! ” She went to shoo him out, but Tessa stopped her.
“He’s not nasty at all, Lottie. He’s mine.”
The maid stared. “Yours, miss?”
“Yes. If there’s any shepherd’s pie left over from last night, please bring some of it. The dog is very hungry.”
“Shepherd’s pie? For a dog?”
“Or if there’s none left, bring something else—bread and milk if there’s nothing else. With an egg broken into it.”
Muttering, the girl went off and returned in a few minutes with a bowl containing a mess of stale bread, milk and an egg. The little dog fell on it hungrily.
“Thank you,” Tessa told the girl. “Now please set up a tin bath in the back yard, and I will want several large cans of warm water.”
“Gunna drown ‘im, miss?” The maid sniggered.
“Don’t be silly. But as you observed, he’s filthy and needs a bath.” And there were fleas, but she wasn’t going to stress that.
Lottie shrank back. “Don’t look at me, I ain’t paid to wash dirty mongrels—in fact, we all bin talking.” She made an expansive gesture, as if to include the whole household. “None of us’ve bin paid in a good long while. It ain’t right, miss, it ain’t right.”
“I know, and I’m very sorry about it,” Tessa said, “but you’ll have to take it up with my brother, I’m afraid. I can’t help you. I don’t have a penny to my name.” She added in a coaxing voice, “But first, Lottie, could you please fetch me the bathtub and some warm water?”
Lottie sniffed. “I told you, I ain’t washin’ that thing. What if it bites me?”
“He won’t,” Tessa said. “I’ll bathe him myself. Now fetch the tub, if you please.”
Leaving the maid to carry out her tasks, and the dog licking the bowl clean, Tessa ran upstairs and fetched a cake of soap, a comb and then, as an afterthought, a pair of scissors. There was no way she’d be able to get a comb through that matted coat.
She set the little dog on a stool and began snipping off clumps of matted fur.
He endured it, shivering, but made no move to escape.
At first she just concentrated on the worst ones, but soon she realized the best thing, the easiest for her and the dog, would be to cut everything off. Which she did.
When he was shorn, she picked him up and placed him gently in the warm water. Shivering, he wriggled and struggled, and gave her piteous looks, but she stayed firm and, talking soothingly, lathered him from top to tail.
“The bucket please, Lottie.” She rinsed him off and the water ran brown, so she had Lottie tip it down the drain and refill the tub, then lathered him up again.
The maid watched curiously. ‘Cor, he’s all skin and bones, i’nt he? Like a little skellington.”
Still shivering, the little dog again made no move to escape, and this time when she rinsed off first the soap, then gave him a last rinse, the water ran clear.
Now he was clean, she could see his true color—no longer a dog that had looked like a colorless rag that had been dragged through a thousand gutters, he was now several shades of brown with a few touches of black, white feet, a white bib and a white-tipped tail.
“Quite a handsome little fellow, aren’t you?” Tessa told him, as she toweled him dry.
Behind her Lottie snorted. “‘Andsome?”
“And obviously intelligent,” Tessa added. She put him down, and he shook himself mightily, even though he was almost dry, which made her laugh. While she and the maid tidied up, the dog explored the small back yard, found a suitable corner and relieved himself tidily.
“Good dog,” Tessa said approvingly. “Now, if Lottie will fetch one of those meaty bones that cook saves for soup . . .”
Lottie shook her head. “Take one of Cook’s precious soup bones? It’s more’n me job’s worth, miss.”
“If Cook objects, you can tell her to take it up with me,” Tessa told her. If Cook took it up with anyone—which was unlikely—it would be Edgar, and she’d get short shrift from him.
With the bone in one hand and the newly clean dog under her arm, Tessa had Lottie check for Edgar’s whereabouts, and finding he’d gone out, hurried up the stairs to her bedchamber.
There was just one small worn and shabby rug on her floor, so she gave the bone to the dog to chew on the wooden floor, figuring it would be easy enough to clean.
“What am I going to call you?” she mused as he gnawed happily. “Scrap? Patch?” He kept on chewing.
No, names like that were too close to dwelling on his life as a street dog. He had a new life now. “What about Billy?” she said. The little dog looked up and wagged his tail.
“That settles it. Billy you are.” Then she sighed. “I wish my own future was as easy to sort out.” Today’s unsuccessful quest for work had daunted her somewhat. She wouldn’t give up, not after one day, but it obviously wasn’t going to be easy. She needed to widen her search.
The idea of being a paid companion—even an unpaid one who would get meals and a roof over her head—was becoming more and more appealing.
But she would need an introduction, at the very least. Old ladies would be unlikely to admit a complete stranger to their home without a recommendation, or at least an introduction.
But how, when she didn’t know any old ladies?
Or even any ladies at all? Both her husbands had kept her to themselves and she’d never had a chance to make any friends.
Even as a widow, she’d never had any callers: Edgar didn’t allow it.
And the ladies of the ton who did know of her, scorned her as a heartless fortune hunter.
She thought again of Marcus. Lord Alverleigh.
‘If there’s ever anything I can do for you, let me know.’
She fetched the card he’d left, picked up the pen, and wrote a note asking him to call on her as soon as convenient.
She folded it, sealed it with a wax seal, wrote his address on it—thank goodness she’d kept his card—and rang a bell to summon a servant to get it delivered. She waited. And waited.
After his big meal, the little dog was snoozing contentedly so, carefully shutting him in her bedchamber, she stepped out and glanced around.
The house was strangely silent. She frowned.
They didn’t have many servants, but even if some of them were taking a half-day off, there should still be someone left to keep the house running.
She listened. The house was silent, not even the sound of a ticking clock.
She went downstairs and glanced into the drawing room.
As expected there was no sign of Edgar. She went down to the kitchen area and was shocked to discover there was not a soul there.
On one end of the big table was some partly made pastry, on the other, a small pile of half-peeled vegetables, the peels curling up and turning brown.
It was as if the servants had simply vanished while still in the middle of cooking. Even Hodges wasn’t in his usual lair; the butler’s pantry. There was no sign of Lottie either. Where was everyone?
She walked back upstairs and climbed the narrow stairway to the servants’ quarters. They were bare of all possessions.
Everyone had left. She was alone in the house. But why? Lottie had complained about their lack of wages, which was perfectly understandable, but she hadn’t given any indication that she—and the rest of the servants—were leaving. Lottie must have known, but she hadn’t said a word. Not even a hint.
It was very mysterious and unsettling. Edgar had clearly gone out, but he would return eventually, and she’d be alone and at his mercy. She shivered. All the more reason why she should send for Lord Alverleigh.
She added a few lines to the outside of her letter to him, then went out into the street and summoned a skinny little urchin she’d often seen hanging around the streets.
Once she’d given him a currant bun and another time, an orange, and ever since he’d given her a gap-toothed smile on the few occasions she’d stepped outside the house.
“Will you take this letter to this house in Mayfair, please?” She read out the address, for of course the lad couldn’t read.
He eyed her shrewdly. “Cost ya sixpence, lady.”
Tessa didn’t have sixpence. She said firmly.
“I’ll give you a penny now, and when you deliver it, the gentleman will pay you sixpence.
See, I’m writing that here”—she added it to her note—“so the gentleman will know to pay you.” She held up the penny, the only change she had been able to find.
It had been in one of Edgar’s coat pockets.
She’d spent all her own money on the journey to Ferndale and back.
The boy hesitated, then held out his hand, saying, “Orright. Where did ya say to take it again?” She repeated the address—luckily it wasn’t far— and he grabbed the penny and the letter and ran off. She hoped he would deliver it, but there was no guarantee.
She returned to the house and went to the front room to wait.
It, too, looked strangely bare. Everything of value had been removed—the handsome ormolu clock that usually sat on the mantlepiece, the collection of silver framed miniatures that hung on the wall, and the small, expensive-looking knick-knacks that had been placed tastefully around the room to give the impression of prosperity in case there was ever a visitor. Everything was gone.
While she was out, perhaps even while she was bathing the dog, the servants had stripped the house of any small portable valuables and decamped.
She shuddered, imagining how Edgar would react. She prayed that he wouldn’t return before Lord Alverleigh arrived.
Half an hour later the front doorbell jangled. She hadn’t seen a carriage pull up, but since she was the only person left in the house, she supposed she should answer it.
She opened the door. “Lord Alverleigh,” she exclaimed in relief. “Thank you for coming.”