Chapter Seventeen
Earlier in the day, before Araminta called him the second time, Davey drove Eleanor along Princes Street and dropped the young maid at the final block.
It didn’t take much effort to bring the lad round for the coachman has no fancy ambitions, unlike the Moore’s coachman in Richmond who is always on the make.
As far as Eleanor can ascertain, Davey mostly likes cheap cheroots and porridge, the latter of which Cook sends round daily to the mews in a lidded tin, topped with a knob of butter and a slick pool of honey.
Davey likes his job though he’s welcomed Mr McGhie’s extra shillings.
He’s especially pleased at the prospect of more on the way; now he knows Eleanor has extracted two per visit.
‘We’ll have to get them up a bit,’ she says, cementing herself as a firm friend.
‘And, Davey, the mistress looks after her staff. These men are a short-term sting, but you can back the right horse here and have more in the long run,’ she adds and watches her words sinking in.
‘It’s London the mistress is from?’ he enquires, adding, ‘the big city,’ to the end of the question. From this Eleanor understands a great deal.
‘She’s said she’ll take some of the staff when she goes,’ she tells him. This isn’t a lie though it’s Cook, of course, who’s attracted Mrs Moore’s interest.
Davey happily digs no further. Eleanor has no qualms about misdirection but draws the line at outright lies, except in the necessary matter of Messrs McGhie and Thom.
By the time they’ve finished talking, he’s agreed to misdirect the gentlemen in the same way Eleanor plans to.
The pair of them will back each other up.
At the foot of Hanover Street, she hops out of the carriage.
‘You’d best get back,’ she says. Davey tips his hat and watches as Eleanor starts along Princes Street.
Then he turns in the direction of the West End.
It’s been an eventful morning. A few doors along, Eleanor glances back to check the carriage has gone.
She hopes that with Davey on her side, the mistress’s story might wash.
Still, her hands shake as she approaches number two.
She stops before the window to pluck up her courage, then lays a hand to the door knob.
Inside, the boy directs her to the back room where today, Mr McGhie is sober.
He doesn’t refer to what happened the last time.
‘Miss Thrale,’ he greets her, businesslike. ‘What news?’
‘You owe me two shillings and two more, sir,’ Eleanor says. ‘For you did not pay me last night.’
‘Ah yes.’ McGhie is unperturbed and sorts four coins from his pocket, laying them in an untidy pile at the corner of his desk – something for the girl to aim at. ‘What’s your mistress been up to then? Come on, earn your keep.’
‘She’s been reading in her great aunt’s library and became excited when she received a letter this morning.’
‘A letter?’
‘She ordered the carriage round directly, sir, but didn’t take me with her. I’m not sure where she went. I thought to ask in the kitchen, later.’
‘The kitchen?’
‘When the staff are at dinner. One of the others might know. Or I could engage the carriage man in conversation. I could go to the mews on a pretext, sir.’
McGhie waves off this suggestion for reasons that are obvious to Eleanor now. ‘She went without you?’ he double-checks.
Eleanor knows this is unusual though not unheard of; a lady unaccompanied in her carriage. He’s right though, Mrs Moore generally takes Eleanor when she goes out, or at least she did until last night. ‘Where’s the other gentleman?’ she asks.
McGhie glares. ‘That’s none of your concern.’ But Eleanor’s question is answered nonetheless when the shop door opens beyond the glass partition and Mr Thom, his face like thunder, storms into the rear office.
‘Sir,’ Eleanor drops a shallow curtsey. Mr Thom ignores this nicety. He doesn’t remove his dapper burgundy coat or set down his ebony cane, instead advancing upon her and grabbing her wrist. Eleanor lets out a squeal as he almost throws her onto an oak bench under the window.
‘You lied, you little bitch.’
Eleanor’s heart pounds as her mind races. Has Davey betrayed her already?
‘What is it? What’s happened?’ McGhie demands.
Thom turns. ‘I’ve just come from the castle. I fell into conversation with one of the soldiers. The McKenzie woman visited the treasury. They got the crown out for her.’
McGhie’s gaze turns menacingly back towards Eleanor who pulls away, trying to make for the door.
But it’s useless. Thom catches her by the waist this time and throws her back onto the bench.
He strikes her on the cheek for good measure.
Last night McGhie was the violent one and Thom her saviour.
Now it seems both men are in concert. Eleanor starts to cry.
‘She went with Colonel Fraser, sir. I don’t know where,’ she manages to get out.
‘She didn’t go off with Fraser, you damn liar. You were with her throughout. Did you think I wouldn’t check? Gossip about women visiting an army barracks is easily obtained. How many times have you palmed me off with a bunch of lies?’
Eleanor finds that she cannot get a single word to cross her lips. Mr Thom has never in all these years said ‘damn’.
‘How many times have you lied?’ Thom repeats furiously. ‘What else have you withheld?’
‘Nothing!’ Eleanor exclaims. ‘I swear it!’
Thom’s eyes narrow. ‘Bloody liar!’ he repeats. Then, more terrifyingly, ‘You little whore.’
Beyond the glass partition the shop boy peers from the far side of the counter.
Angus McGhie bursts out of the room and shoos the boy down the cellar stairs.
Then he locks the shop door. Eleanor thinks to make a break for the back entrance onto the lane, but Thom is leering over her like a hound sniffing its prey.
She’s tried to be too clever. She’s stupidly treated it, like Mrs Moore said, as a game.
‘Oh God,’ she murmurs. She wishes she’d left for Wimbledon two nights ago. She’d be out of this godforsaken city and halfway to Newcastle by now if she’d been lucky on the road.
Harry Thom bends down so close that she can smell the wine he had for breakfast. ‘Has your mistress got the crown? Tell me the truth,’ he sneers. ‘Where does she keep it?’
Eleanor shakes her head with a degree of violence. ‘No, sir. The crown is in the treasury. She showed little interest in it but the colonel insisted.’
Thom’s face twists. He’s about to correct her: not that crown. But then his eyes lighten.
‘What did she show an interest in?’ he asks.
Eleanor is terrified. Her mind darts so quickly that she can’t hold on to a single thought. ‘The church,’ she gets out.
Thom brings down his cane, sharp upon the bench. ‘The church in the castle?’
‘Yes, sir.’ She’s said it now. ‘The chapel. Mrs Moore is devout,’ she adds, managing one lie in her terror, at least.
‘And what did she find there?’
‘Find, sir?’
‘What attracted her attention?’
‘The windows,’ Eleanor burbles. ‘The view. I don’t know. She loitered by the window.’
She starts to wail. Mr Thom puts his hand round her throat.
‘Do you swear it?’ He squeezes, not hard enough to throttle her but enough that she wheezes.
‘Yes, sir.’
He holds his hand on her windpipe for five more seconds that feel like five minutes.
She kicks out uselessly. Behind him McGhie watches.
His eyes are alight. Eleanor thinks she’ll die in this back room, amid the ledgers and the wooden boxes of spirits packed in hay.
She wonders if her soul will be able to return to Wimbledon if her body expires in Scotland.
When Thom desists it takes her a moment to understand that he’s let go.
McGhie swipes the coins off the desk and returns them to his pocket. ‘Filthy lying bitch,’ he growls.
Thom removes a carefully folded handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his face as if strangling Eleanor has worn him out.
‘This shouldn’t be necessary,’ he says, as if it’s the girl’s fault.
‘Make no mistake, I’ll hunt you down, Eleanor Thrale, if you defy me again.
If you run, I’ll not cease until I have you.
Now go to your mistress and do what we’ve commissioned. Next time I’ll not be so lenient.’
Eleanor blinks. She doesn’t understand. Hunt me down, she thinks, before her an image of dogs to the chase up Richmond Hill. He can’t really expect her to return, can he?
‘Go!’ Thom shouts, and she jumps up like a fox out of a hole.
McGhie laughs and opens the office door, leading her through the shop. He pauses before unlocking the door to Princes Street. ‘I never trusted you,’ he snarls.
The cold air is a relief as she tumbles onto the pavement.
Two cab drivers opposite watch as she scrabbles, almost tripping over her own feet before finally making off.
It feels as if she’s being followed but she dare not look back, so she fixes her gaze on the pavement and charges towards the West End.
At Charlotte Square she doesn’t walk down the steep hill at the far corner for that, she thinks, is where they’ll expect her to go.
Instead, she cuts down the side of St George’s with the merest brave glance behind as she continues into the mews courtyard where two carriages are being brought out by stable boys from other houses.
She doesn’t acknowledge them, but pushes open the door to the McKenzie stable.
The carriage is gone. Davey must have been summoned.
She feels sick as she flops onto an upturned crate and begins to cry, cursing as she runs over the mistakes she’s made.
She believes Mr Thom will pursue her if she runs, and he knows well enough where she comes from.
Why did she stay to help Mrs Moore? The mistress doesn’t care about her anyway.
‘I’m in a bloody rat trap,’ she sobs and tries not to think what happens in those.
The stable is freezing. She warms herself beside the embers in the stove until she hears the carriage pulling up. The doors open and Davey removes the harness on the first horse before he realises she’s there.
‘Eleanor! You were right.’ He sounds triumphant as he removes two shillings from his tweed waistcoat and holds them up like a prize. Then he notices her swollen eyes. ‘What is it?’
Eleanor shakes her head. ‘Mr Thom realised I wasn’t telling the truth.’
Davey leads the horse into a stall and draws a bucket of water.
‘I told him what you said, that Mrs Moore visited a fancy house today. He asked where it was, so I said one of the new ones down at the botanic garden. I couldn’t think of anywhere further from where we really went.
I said my rate was up anaw and he made no fuss about that.
’ He returns for the other horse and peers at Eleanor, realising that something serious is wrong.
Eleanor pulls back her scarf. The skin round her neck is circled in pink. ‘He took me by the throat,’ she says. ‘He’s going to kill me.’
Davey stables the second horse. ‘He can’t do that.’
Eleanor begins to cry. ‘I wish I’d never . . .’
Davey puts his arm round her shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘You’re all right now.’
Eleanor sniffs. ‘I’ve got bruises on my wrist too,’ she adds. ‘I thought I was a goner.’
‘I’ll get you a cup of beer.’ Davey goes to the firkin, propped on an old, oak saddle rack.
The barrel is refilled monthly on the McKenzie account at Mrs Hamilton’s.
He’s seeing to Eleanor like one of his horses, she realises.
Tears roll silently down the girl’s cheeks.
‘I wish I could just disappear,’ she whispers.
Davey pauses. ‘You can stay here if you like.’