Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
I don’t tell Catriona’s story to Gray on the way home, and he doesn’t ask.
I’m still mulling it through, and I want to sit with it for a while.
Even then, will I tell him? I don’t know.
Catriona wouldn’t want me to. Everything I’ve heard about the girl tells me she would rather be the villain of her story than the victim.
Maybe I’ll let her keep that, as much as I can.
When we get home, dinner is waiting, and both Isla and McCreadie are already seated, eating the appetizer soup. We’ve barely sat before Isla says, “Did you find Bobby?”
“I told her about the case,” McCreadie says.
“We found him, and he is fine,” I say.
She seems to consider her next words and reject a few before blurting, “I would have liked to have been involved.”
I glance at Gray, who clears his throat.
“We understand we made a misstep,” Gray says.
“No, you did not,” Isla says. “We did. Hugh has explained the situation. We were busy, and you did not wish to interrupt.”
“We would have told you,” I say, “if it had gone on longer. It was a very short case.”
“I know, and I . . .” She glances at McCreadie. “We understand. This is new. Our”—her pale cheeks flush—“relationship. I will admit, if you had mentioned it last night, I would have been torn. In the end, I would have gone on Hugh’s picnic. But I would have kept thinking of the case.”
McCreadie touches her hand. “And I would not have wanted you to choose the picnic because you felt obligated after I planned it. I certainly would not have wished either of us to be distracted by a case. The solution would have been to postpone the picnic.” He glances at us.
“We are all still navigating these new waters. We understand why you chose not to tell us, but in future, please do.” He pauses.
“Unless I have bought tickets to something we cannot rebook. In that case, please tell us nothing, and we will not complain at being left out.”
“Understood,” I say.
“Now”—Isla sits back in her seat—“tell us how you found Bobby.”
After dinner, Isla invites me to a drink in the courtyard. I hesitate. As much as I’d love that, I’m worried she’s only offering because she thinks I feel neglected. But she insists, and so we retire there as the men head to the library with their post-dinner libations.
“I have an idea about Dorrit,” she says. “A potential solution.”
I smile. “Do you?”
She studies my face. “You have the same one, I suspect.”
I tell her what I have in mind, which is exactly what she does, and we make plans for that. Then she says, “There is more. What Davina told you about Catriona. It troubles you. I could see that at dinner.”
I sip my whisky and then say, “It does.”
“Do you want to talk about it? You do not need to tell me her secrets. Perhaps there is another way to discuss it?”
I consider as I finger the glass. “No, I’d like to tell you. It might not be what Catriona would want, but I know it hasn’t been easy on you, realizing the sort of young woman you let into your house.”
“It is a chance I take every time,” she says. “I have made mistakes. I refuse to let those mistakes keep me from ever offering another position to someone others would consider unsuitable.”
“I know. But I’ll tell you anyway. Shall we do that on the walk?”
“Yes, we will tell the men what we are up to, listen to them insist on joining us, and then refuse their help, and leave them sputtering and grumbling.”
I smile. “In other words, the usual.”
“Exactly.”
The men do grumble, but not too much, proving they recognize that Isla and I need time together . . . and maybe that they do, too. Also, it’s still daylight, and we are taking Simon, who will resume his old role of shadowing us.
As we walk, I tell Isla about Catriona’s story, as given to me by Davina.
“Oh,” she says when I finish. “Oh. That poor child.”
“It may not be entirely true, though I don’t know what reason Davina would have to make it up. If she wanted to concoct a story, I suspect Catriona would have come out looking far worse.”
“I agree, and also, from what I knew of Catriona, that story makes sense. It would explain some of the inconsistencies in her story. She said she came from the Old Town and that she never knew her father, but her speech and mannerisms suggested a middle-class upbringing.”
“Which is all true,” I say. “Born in the Old Town. Father not in the picture. But grew up in a middle-class family where she learned to emulate middle-class girls.”
“Because she expected to become one. That poor—” Isla inhales. “I will stop saying that. She would have hated it. Yet it explains her lack of ethics.”
I nod. “She learned they were a liability. It also explains her illiteracy. She had problems, but also no one was going to put her in school, much less give her a tutor to help overcome her issues and learn to read. I do wonder who she was going to see on her half days. I heard she always returned out of sorts.”
“She did.”
“If she was kicked out, was she still seeing her mother? Or a half sibling?” I sigh. “And that’s a mystery I should not pursue. If her mother is in need of money, the last thing I want is for her to know her ‘daughter’ is moving up in the world—and income.”
“Yes,” Isla says firmly. “Please do not make contact with her.”
“I won’t.”
I check a street name, and we turn onto it, ignoring a man who spits in our direction, clearly pegging us for charitable do-gooders venturing into the Old Town.
“Catriona had choices,” I say. “She wasn’t entirely a victim of circumstance.
But her choices are more understandable now.
She didn’t have options. Except, I think, the option to give you and Duncan a chance.
To give Mrs. Wallace and Alice a chance.
To reserve judgment and see whether you deserved her betrayals.
By that point, though, I don’t think she considered that a choice. ”
“Strike before you are struck,” Isla says.
“Yes, and maybe, in time, she’d have realized she wasn’t going to be struck, but that time never came. And now all I can do is wonder what became of her. I know she didn’t end up in my body. Nor did she come back to hers when I left it temporarily.”
“You think she is . . . gone.”
“I’d like to think she’s out there, somewhere. I used to picture her scheming and betraying everyone she met, and I hated to unleash that on the world. Maybe that’s what she’s doing. Maybe it’s not. Either way . . .”
“It is out of your hands,” Isla murmurs. “Leaving this body will not bring her back. You know that, yes?”
“I do. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about it.” I look up at our destination and take a deep breath. “Let’s hope this little excursion doesn’t give me something else to feel bad about.”
We are in Dorrit’s apartment, speaking to her mother. Dorrit isn’t here. She’ll be home soon for dinner—a pot of soup simmering on the tiny stove, little more than a hotplate.
I’d gotten the address from Dorrit, who’d only given it when I assured her that if we spoke to her mother, it would only be to tell her that Dorrit rescued Bobby.
That is what we tell her, and Martha Morrison beams. She’s young. Maybe midtwenties, and that reminds me of Catriona’s story, her teenage mother. This one is different.
From what I gathered earlier, Dorrit’s mother had been a young governess.
Martha confirms that and only says “circumstances” forced her to abandon that employment, her red cheeks telling us that the circumstances were Dorrit, and the flash of anger in her eyes suggesting it had not been a mutual affair.
Seduced or raped by someone in the house, and then turned out to the streets, like Catriona’s mother.
In this case, it was a reversal—the middle-class governess ending up in the Old Town rather than the disgraced parlormaid ending up in the New Town.
Now Martha works two jobs and frets about her daughter, left on her own most of the day.
Isla offers to find her something more suitable, framing it in a way that makes it seem as if she knows dozens of people so eager for a governess that they’d happily overlook an out-of-wedlock child.
That keeps it from smacking of charity, and Isla will find her something, however challenging that might be.
In the meantime, we have something to ask of Martha.
We do that, and we get our answer just before Dorrit barrels through the doorway.
Seeing me, she stops short. Then her gaze swings to Isla, and she begins creeping backward.
I rise, confused, until her mother says, “This is Dr. Gray’s sister, Isla.
She came with her friend. She is not from the Children’s Society. ”
That is what Dorrit feared—that I said she stole Bobby, and that meant she’d be taken from her mother.
“We have a problem we are hoping you could help with,” Isla says, as I go to the window and signal Simon.
“You are the chemist,” Dorrit says, inching forward. “I do not know any chemistry yet. Only mathematics and natural science.”
Isla smiles. “It is not a chemistry problem. Possibly a natural science one, though.”
At a knock, I open the door, and Simon steps in with the little white terrier in his arms.
“That is the false Bobby,” Dorrit says. “All cleaned up. Oh, he is very pretty.”
“She,” I say. “She is indeed very pretty, and very sweet. Dr. Gray and I took her home because she would not leave us. She’s very eager for a friend. We are trying to find her a home, and your mother said, if you wanted her and she wishes to stay, you might take her. A reward for helping Bobby.”
Dorrit spins to her mother. “You said that?”
Her mother smiles. “I did. The only question is whether you want her.”
Dorrit runs to Simon and puts out her arms, and the dog leaps into them, and there is no question. No question at all.