Chapter Three Evangeline’s Letter #4
The next two hours revealed no grand answer, but many smaller disturbances.
Mr Silas Mordaunt’s name appeared more often than Sebastian had remembered: as witness, correspondent, adviser, holder of copies, recipient of fees.
Lord Ashmont’s initials were disguised in some places, plain in others.
Sums moved, halted, resumed under different headings.
A payment marked for “consultation” appeared twice in the month before Evangeline’s letter.
Another, from a Rookwood account, had been made after her removal from London to an address Marianne did not yet recognise.
By noon, her timeline stretched across three sheets. Sebastian’s papers occupied two piles: verified and doubtful. A third pile, labelled by Marianne as “Requires explanation,” had grown larger than he liked.
“This is intolerably slow,” he said.
“It is intolerably late,” she replied. “Slow is now our only protection.”
“Protection from what? These men have had years to hide themselves. Every hour gives them more.”
“Every careless accusation warns them what we know.”
“I prefer action to waiting.”
“I prefer accuracy to theatre.”
He looked at the growing lists. “Names, Miss Vale. We require names.”
“We have one.”
“Mordaunt.”
“Yes.”
“He retired abroad.”
“Did he?”
Sebastian frowned. “That was my understanding.”
“From whom?”
His expression suggested he was beginning to resent how often she asked that question.
Marianne rose and crossed to the lower shelf where Lady Theodosia had kept directories, old and current, annotated in her hand with marks whose meanings Marianne had deciphered over years. She took down the most recent legal directory, then an older one, and carried both to the desk.
“Mordaunt, Silas,” she murmured, turning pages. “Chancery Lane. Later Mordaunt and Bell. Later Bell alone. Here. The main office closed, but there is still a clerk listed for archived matters. Mr Edwin Bell, formerly chief clerk to S. Mordaunt, maintains rooms at number seventeen Chancery Lane.”
Sebastian leaned over to see. “That directory is three years old.”
Marianne took another. “And in this one, two years old. And here, last year, Bell remains listed as document agent.”
“Document agent?”
“A useful phrase. Like professional discretion. It may mean anything and therefore usually means something.”
Sebastian was already reaching for his gloves. “Then we go to Chancery Lane.”
Marianne looked up. “We?”
“You found the lead. You will know what to ask.”
“Your Grace, I cannot simply accompany you across London to a solicitor’s office.”
“Why not?”
For a moment she thought he truly did not know.
Then she realised he knew the rule, but had not considered its application to her.
Paid companions could be sent on errands.
Women like Marianne could be useful enough to be included in work and not elevated enough to be protected by convention — until convention was needed to punish them.
“Because,” she said, “if I am seen leaving with you alone, and if anyone wishes to use that against Lantern House, they may do so.”
He frowned. “I will not be alone. My carriage, servants—”
“Do not be obtuse. It does not suit you.”
His brows lifted. “You have a talent for making insult sound like correction.”
“And you have a talent for making danger sound as though it can be outranked.”
Before he could answer, Helena entered with a folded note in one hand and Mrs Alderley behind her, the latter wearing a bonnet decorated with feathers that might once have belonged to a more cheerful bird.
“Mrs Alderley has expressed a desire for an airing,” Helena said.
Mrs Alderley lifted her ear trumpet. “I have expressed no such thing. I said the house was full of men at the doors and if I wished to be besieged I would have married a Frenchman.”
“Precisely,” Helena replied. “You will accompany Miss Vale and His Grace to Chancery Lane.”
Mrs Alderley looked delighted. “Are we calling upon lawyers? Excellent. I have not frightened a clerk since Michaelmas.”
Sebastian stared at Helena.
Marianne, despite herself, nearly laughed.
The expedition was arranged before the Duke could object with any success.
Mrs Alderley was a widow of unimpeachable respectability, sufficiently elderly to serve as chaperone and sufficiently deaf to be incapable of hearing anything inconvenient unless it interested her.
Helena instructed Tom to accompany them on the box with one of the Halgrave men.
Mrs Finch packed a small parcel of biscuits because, as she informed no one in particular, gentlemen always believed urgency could be conducted without nourishment and were therefore unfit to manage crises.
By half past one, Marianne found herself seated in the Duke of Halgrave’s carriage, opposite the Duke himself, with Mrs Alderley beside her and the parcel of biscuits between them like a peace offering neither party had made.
The carriage was plain for a ducal equipage, though beautifully sprung.
Dark leather, no excessive gilding, a rug folded precisely, straps polished, windows clean.
Sebastian sat facing forward, his hat beside him, his gloved hands resting upon the silver head of his cane.
He looked too large for the space, or perhaps the space had become smaller because Marianne was obliged to be aware of him in it.
Mrs Alderley settled herself comfortably. “Now, if either of you intends to quarrel, you must speak clearly. I dislike missing the best of things.”
“We do not intend to quarrel,” Sebastian said.
Mrs Alderley adjusted her trumpet. “What was that?”
“He said we do not intend to quarrel,” Marianne supplied.
“Then why are we going?”
Sebastian looked out the window.
Marianne pressed her lips together.
For several minutes, they rode in silence through the damp, busy streets.
London shifted around them in layers: elegant squares giving way to noisier roads, shops with awnings dark from rain, apprentices carrying parcels, hackneys splashing through mud, women with baskets stepping between wheels with the fatalistic grace of those who knew carriages rarely yielded to need.
Marianne watched it all, partly to avoid looking at the man opposite and partly because London, unlike a drawing room, rarely bothered to conceal its machinery.
Sebastian broke the silence first.
“You said many women at Lantern House are not poor because they lacked money.”
Marianne looked at him.
“In the passage yesterday,” he said. “You said women often wait too long for protection. Earlier, something about money being controlled.”
“I said many women are poor because a man controlled access to what was theirs.”
“That is not the same as lacking money.”
“No.”
He considered this. “Settlements are designed to protect women.”
“Some are. Some are designed to appear to protect women while ensuring that every practical decision remains in male hands.”
“Trustees are appointed for a reason.”
“Yes. The difficulty begins when the trustee is the danger.”
Mrs Alderley leaned closer. “Who is in danger?”
“All of us, ma’am,” Marianne said.
“Oh. Nothing new there.”
Sebastian’s mouth tightened, but he did not smile.
Marianne continued, because his question, at least, had been honest. “A widow may possess jointure on paper and yet wait months for payment because a son-in-law delays. A daughter may have a fortune settled upon her and still be unable to refuse a guardian determined to trade it. A wife may bring money into a marriage and discover that gratitude is expected for the allowance made from her own portion. A woman may have rights in theory and no means to enforce them without asking assistance from the very men who profit by her silence.”
The Duke looked out at a crossing sweeper, a small boy standing ankle-deep in mud. “You speak as though all men are villains.”
“No. That would be easier.”
He glanced back at her.
“Easier?”
“One could simply avoid villains if they wore the proper expression. It is harder when harm is done by men who are affectionate, dutiful, respectable or merely too comfortable to notice whose discomfort pays for theirs.”
There was a pause.
Sebastian said, “You include me in that.”
“I do not yet know where to include you.”
His eyes held hers. “But you have made a list.”
“Yes.”
Mrs Alderley looked between them. “If this is not quarrelling, I congratulate you both upon your restraint.”
The carriage turned into Chancery Lane before either could answer.
Mordaunt’s former office stood in a narrow building squeezed between a stationer and a print seller, its windows dark with grime, its brass plate old enough to have lost confidence.
Mordaunt the first name had been scratched and polished so often that it remained visible as a ghost beneath Bell, Document Agent.
Inside, the air smelled of dust, ink, old paper and fear badly concealed beneath sealing wax.
A young clerk emerged from behind a high desk when they entered, saw Sebastian, saw the ducal bearing if not the title, then saw Marianne and Mrs Alderley and became confused enough to bow to the umbrella stand.
“Mr Bell?” Sebastian asked.
“N-not present, sir. That is, Mr Bell attends by appointment.”
“I am the Duke of Halgrave.”
The clerk went pale. “Your Grace.”
Marianne sighed inwardly. There were circumstances in which rank was a key. There were others in which it became a hammer applied to a locked drawer one wished to open quietly.
Sebastian placed his card upon the desk. “I require access to archived files concerning the Rookwood-Ashmont settlement drafted under Mr Silas Mordaunt’s supervision approximately seven years ago.”
The clerk’s eyes darted toward a door behind him. “I could not say, Your Grace. Older files were removed.”
“Removed where?”
“I could not say.”
“When?”
“I could not say.”
Sebastian’s expression hardened. “You appear to suffer from a remarkable poverty of information for a man employed among records.”
The clerk swallowed.