Chapter Thirteen #3
His clothes, of course, added to this impression.
He wore loose-fitting trousers and scuffed boots that could have done with the services of his stepmother’s boot boy.
Over a grubby linen shirt he’d arrayed himself in a waistcoat and, on top of that, the ancient coat, which boasted patches on the elbows and wide enough sleeves to camouflage his splinted arm.
She was pleased to see he’d tucked his right hand into the front of his waistcoat for support.
The battered, and slightly greasy-looking, cocked hat that he seemed to be proposing to wear still rested on the table.
Instead of being its original uniform black, it had faded along its creases from many years out in all weather, and was probably older than he was.
His light-brown hair, instead of having been coaxed into the most fashionable of styles by his valet, was a tangled mess of curls, and coupled with his unshaven chin completed the impression of a disreputable villain.
Phoebe couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing, her hand to her mouth. “Good heavens. I wouldn’t wish to meet you on a dark night. You look most threatening.”
He grinned, suddenly boyish and himself again. “That’s the whole point. I can’t go in there looking like I’m an easy mark. That would be the height of foolishness. Neither do I go in there looking like I’m out to cause trouble. At least, not with an arm like this.” He touched the broken arm.
“Shouldn’t it still be in a sling?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not going in there looking like an easy mark. I’ll keep it tucked in like this for support unless anything untoward happens.”
Untoward? Phoebe wanted to ask him what he meant by that.
But Cecilia had opened the trunk. “You’re only a bit smaller than me. You can wear the same outfit I did. It’s a bit smelly, I’m afraid, but I can assure you it has no occupants.”
“Occupants?”
“Lice,” Gabriel said. “Fleas. We’re going where people don’t have enough water to keep themselves clean.
Nowhere to wash, often only one set of clothes so they never get changed.
When I told you they were poor, I meant they have nothing.
Absolutely nothing. And while we don’t have to look exactly like the worst of them, we do want to smell like them.
Can’t go in there stinking of roses. Or rather lavender—which is how you smell at the moment.
I picked up the scent as soon as you came through the door. A dead giveaway.”
Phoebe nodded, clinging to the relief that even if she was going to be smelly enough to mask the perfume she’d put on this morning, with Gabriel in mind, she wasn’t going to be donning lousy clothes.
Not that this possibility had occurred to her before this moment.
She wanted to ask him if they were going to be doing some sleuthing, looking for traces of his mother, or if it was just a tour, much as she knew people did at Bedlam.
The feeling that she didn’t want it to be a tour arose.
She didn’t want to feel as though she was at the Exeter ’change and the inhabitants the wild animals for her to gawp at.
Cecilia waved an imperious hand at Gabriel. “You’ll have to go and wait on the stairs while I help Phoebe into her disguise. Off you go. And don’t let anyone see you looking like that or you might get chased off by the grooms. With brooms.” She giggled, as though this prospect amused her.
Gabriel departed, hat in hand, and Cecilia, despite her youth, took capable charge. She very soon had Phoebe out of her gown, at which point it became evident the disguise was a male one.
“Trousers?” Phoebe all but gasped, as Cecilia held them up. And what was more, decidedly grubby trousers with a ragged hem to the legs.
Cecilia nodded. “Safest to go in dressed as a boy. It’s not a good place for girls our age. And it should be easier for you than it was for me, as you’re so slender. Also the clothes will be baggier on you. But that will only make you look poorer. As though you’re wearing someone else’s castoffs.”
“I will be,” Phoebe muttered under her breath.
However, pushing aside her mounting doubts, she consented to put on a tatty linen shirt with a distinct aroma of stale sweat about it, the ragged trousers, which had leather braces, and a waistcoat that was so long on her as to baggily reach her mid-thighs.
On top of this ensemble went an even baggier top coat, the sleeves of which she had to fold back from her hands.
Luckily the scruffy boots Cecilia produced were a good fit.
However, all of this, boots included, possessed the distinct and unpleasant aroma of their last possessor.
Best, perhaps, not to ask who he’d been.
As a final touch, Cecilia produced a brown, felted woolen hat into which she stuffed Phoebe’s hair out of the way.
She then stood back to admire her handiwork.
“You look perfect. You make a good boy. I hadn’t realized when I wore it just how good a disguise it was.
You look the part, just as Gabriel does.
I already chose a name for you to fit with your new appearance.
Gabriel chose mine for me—I was his brother, Tom Booth.
You’re to be another brother, Will Booth.
Nice and plain. He’s Joe Booth, by the way. He’s older brother to both of us now.”
A little overwhelmed by the speed at which this was happening, Phoebe nodded.
Cecilia, who seemed to think her part had now been played, took one of the chairs and sat down, a book appearing in her hands from somewhere about her person.
“I’ll just sit here and read until you get back.
No need to worry because no one will miss us.
Good luck. And remember, do everything Joe tells you.
He knows best, and besides which, he’s your boss.
” She winked, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
Phoebe, heart in mouth, but with it also hammering with excitement, partly due to the novelty and freedom being disguised as a boy would bring, nodded. “I’ll remember.” And pushing the door open, she stepped out into the corridor.