Chapter 3 #3
Laura sniffled. “Will she be all right? It’s so early.”
“How long has she been in labor?”
Laura made a muffled reply.
“Of course I’ll come.” Ellen’s voice took a placating tone.
“I need to make my excuses to the dinner party and change, then I’ll hurry to your sister.
I’ll be out the back door in five minutes.
” Her shoes scuffed against the cement floor, and Mark quickly backed up the stairs.
He ducked out the servants’ door and behind a large potted plant when she emerged.
Baffled by the strong, competent woman, Mark stared at her back as she strode up the foyer and to the drawing room doors, large bustle swaying behind her.
“My apologies, ladies, I’m feeling unwell.
” He could make out her figure, slumped against the door frame, through the fronds of the fern.
“Thank you for coming.” A pause. “No, Mother, I’ll just rest. I’ll see you in the morning.
” She turned and went to the dark cherry staircase near Mark.
He held his breath, hoping she wouldn’t catch him spying.
Ellen must’ve had too much on her mind, for she didn’t notice her husband behind the potted fern as she raced upstairs.
Mark hesitated behind the pot. He didn’t have much time to decide.
Is she going out past dark? That isn’t safe!
He had half a mind to go tell her father what she was up to.
Then he remembered. Ellen is my wife. I can tell her to stay.
He hesitated again. She was already furious with him.
Yet it still wasn’t safe for a woman to go out by herself.
Decision made, Mark lurched forward and raced to the guest room where his afternoon clothes lay, freshly pressed, on the bed. Years in the Navy helped him as he quickly undressed, buttoned, and dressed again. He threw on his shoes and thundered down the stairs.
Meeks, the butler, paused in the foyer and looked up at him, one eyebrow cocked.
Mark felt suddenly foolish, as if he were a child in trouble. He cleared his throat and slowed to a stroll. “Stepping out for a cigar.”
Meeks opened his mouth, probably to tell him there were plenty of cigars in the dining room with the other men, but Mark strolled past and out the door, sans hat, before the butler could speak.
Mark stepped down the stairs and leaned against the wrought iron railing to catch his breath and wait.
A moment later, a dark figure in a drab, gray cloak exited the servants’ corridor below. She carefully stepped up the stairs to reach street level a few yards from where Mark waited. He held his breath.
Ellen hurried down the street, toward the square where several hansom cabs waited. Mark waited another moment, then set off after her.
She waved one down, got in, and it drove off.
Mark cursed under his breath.
“Evenin’ guv. Where to?” The second hansom cab inched toward him, the old bay horse sighing with either frustration or exhaustion for the night.
Without a second thought, Mark jumped in. “Follow that cab.”
“Are you sure?”
Mark slammed the door shut. “That’s my wife.”
The driver chuckled above him. “Oh, so that’s how it is.
” He clicked his teeth, then closed the trap.
Mark leaned forward in his seat, peering out into the darkness, eager to keep his wife’s cab within his vision.
After a few moments, they left Mayfair and the nice homes and passed down Marylebone High Street.
So far, everything was fine. Marylebone had high-end spots and dodgy spots.
Mark was relieved. He’d had horrid visions of Ellen tearing off into the night to help a prostitute in Whitechapel or some such nonsense.
He paused, surprised. Why on earth would I expect Ellen to brave the rookeries of Whitechapel?
He remembered their first walk together, when she’d practically jumped out of her skin at an unusually large leaf that fell during their stroll around Hyde Park.
She’d shrieked and clutched his arm for comfort.
No, that girl wouldn’t know slums like Whitechapel even existed, let alone go to them under cover of darkness.
And yet. Mark had a feeling he was in over his head. Who was he married to?
The cabs turned a corner down a narrow street, and Mark’s heart sank. So she was headed to a dodgy part of Marylebone after all. Why doesn’t she call a doctor if she’s so worried about the servant’s sister?
The hansom eased to a stop, and the horse gave a soft nicker. The driver opened the trap and called down, “Three shillings.”
Three shillings was highway robbery, but Mark didn’t have time to argue with the man.
He reached into his pocket, found the proper coins, and handed them up.
“Don’t wait for me.” When the driver pulled the lever that opened the door, Mark stepped out of the hansom and turned up the collar of his coat, looking from shadow to shadow.
It wasn’t a slum, but it wasn’t where Ellen belonged, either.
Now that they were off High Street, most of the buildings were old mews in the process of being converted into tenements and little family shops.
Dirt and scraps of trash littered the cobblestone street, but there weren’t vagrants sleeping in alley ways, and most of the homes looked taken care of.
Mark watched Ellen, fifty paces or so ahead of him, clutch her reticule in one hand and turn down a narrow passage.
He hurried to catch up. The passage was too narrow for a carriage.
Mark slowed, neither wanting to frighten her nor be caught, and kept to the many shadows.
She paused in front of one door and knocked. After a moment, the door opened and a man stood silhouetted in lamplight. “Thank God you’re here.” He grabbed Ellen’s hand and yanked her inside, slamming the door behind them.
Mark stood, shocked. Jealousy settled like a hard stone in his belly.
Does she have a lover? Foolishly, arrogantly, that thought had never occurred to him.
Ellen was a beautiful woman. Any man would be stupid not to desire her.
No, his mind tried to make logic of the problem.
She’s here because a woman is having a baby too early.
It’s not a lovers’ assignation. But how could Ellen help?
Mark crept close to the curtained window.
A crack in the corner was wide enough for him to ease in close and get a good look at the parlor.
Inside, several women bustled around. Ellen temporarily blocked his view as she took off her gray cloak and hat, and then he saw a woman with warm brown skin, flushed with exertion, lying on a pallet in the middle of the floor.
Her belly bulged, clearly pregnant, and her white shift was rucked high, exposing most of her legs, while another woman knelt beside her and took her pulse.
He’d never seen anything like it. Men never did. Eight years in the Navy meant he’d seen the inside of a sickroom, even a hospital or two, but never a woman in pain, especially not labor. Ellen crossed the room and washed her hands in a bucket of water, and turned to the woman on the ground.
Mark realized he had no idea who his wife was or what she’d done with little Ellen Hanson, but he wanted to find out.