Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
‘Pardon me, madam.’ Jenny’s heart thudded with shock. She tilted her hat forward and made to move past Gwen, but she was under no illusion that she had been recognised.
‘What on earth are you doing, Jenny?’ Gwen asked. She stepped into Jenny’s path intentionally and gestured to her clothes.
Jenny gave up her pretence and her shoulders sagged. She tilted her hat back and looked at Gwen.
‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’ she asked.
‘Never mind what I am doing, what are you doing dressed in such an outlandish manner?’ Gwen asked.
She crossed her arms and cocked her head, placing herself in the centre of the narrow pavement and Jenny saw there was no hope of avoiding the discussion.
It was rotten luck that she had been discovered, but at least Gwen might be compelled to keep her secret, given that Jenny knew enough of Gwen’s.
She glanced back over her shoulder. Uncle Conrad’s butler had been given an evening off to visit his sick father and would be leaving the house soon.
Meeting Gwen was bad enough but encountering him would be disastrous.
‘Not here. It’s too close to my uncle’s house,’ she said. ‘Keep walking with me a little further and I’ll explain.’
She looped her arm through Gwen’s and they walked back in the direction Gwen had come.
Someone had thoughtfully put a stone bench near the water pump, so they sat side by side.
The street was busy for the time of night, but no one gave them a second glance since they looked like a couple of no particular consequence.
Even though Jenny was filled with dismay at having been discovered, she still felt a twinge of pride that she passed among strangers unnoticed.
‘Is this what you do every Thursday?’ Gwen asked.
‘Not every week, but when I get the opportunity,’ Jenny admitted. ‘I go to the theatre or to public lectures. I’ve been doing it for years now and I’ve never been discovered. What terrible luck that you should call tonight.’
She sounded dejected.
‘I’m not going to let your secret out,’ Gwen huffed.
She adjusted her gloves and looked Jenny up and down.
‘I think it’s rather admirable, actually, and if I hadn’t almost collided with you, I wouldn’t have given you a second glance.
There’s even something different about the way you walk.
More of a swagger, an increased confidence. ’
‘You aren’t scandalised?’
‘A little, but less than I would have expected to be, had anyone suggested such a thing beforehand. I take it that Mr Rosewood is at home snoozing after taking his tincture. No wonder you were so keen that he didn’t run out of it.’
Gwen laughed, and Jenny beamed. The sheer relief was as intoxicating as the tincture.
‘Where should you be going tonight?’
Jenny narrowed her eyes, but apparently Gwen was being sincere.
‘To a lecture on the life of Lady Hester Stanhope and her travels in Sidon.’ She sighed. ‘Can you imagine how daring she must have been, and what sights she saw?’
‘That sounds fascinating. I’m sorry I’ve stopped you going.’
‘It’s not too late,’ Jenny said, pulling out her pocket watch. ‘I don’t have a seat reserved. I usually stand in the galleries at the back.’
A daring idea swept over her.
‘Would you like to come with me?’
‘You want me to come with you?’ Gwen looked incredulous.
‘Only if you’d like to. Unless you need to go home. I’m sure Mr Walters will be wondering where you are.’
‘No, I don’t think he will be,’ Gwen said gloomily, and Jenny thought back to the snappish behaviour she’d seen before. ‘But I couldn’t possibly. I don’t have a chaperone.’
Jenny laughed. ‘But you do, of course. Me. And on the way, you can tell me why you’re here.’
‘Oh, yes, of course! It went completely out of my mind with the surprise of seeing you. We do need to talk quite urgently.’ Gwen frowned. She tapped her fingers together then looked up.
‘Do you know, I think I will come!’
Jenny suppressed her elation. For one awful moment, she had thought her escapades were at an end and Gwen would try to persuade her of the wrongness of her actions – or go straight to Uncle Conrad to inform him.
It hadn’t escaped Jenny’s notice that the mention of Mr Walters waiting had made Gwen’s lips twitch downwards.
Remembering again how unpleasant he had been earlier that day, she was hardly surprised at Gwen’s decision. The poor dear needed an evening of fun.
Jenny stood and held out an arm. ‘Well, then, Mrs Walters. Shall I escort you to this evening’s jollities?’
Gwen looped her arm through Jenny’s. They were of roughly even height and Jenny felt quite at ease strolling alongside her friend.
They caught the underground line from Islington.
The lamps in the carriages were dim enough that unless one was as close as Gwen was to Jenny, her disguise passed.
There were one or two glances in their direction, but Jenny didn’t think they were of suspicion, rather just how some people looked at fellow travellers.
‘They’ll be thinking how kind you are to squire your mother around,’ Gwen told Jenny.
‘Gwen, you are far too young and pretty to be my mother. I suppose you could be my stepmother who married my father later in his life.’
Gwen’s eyes widened and she grinned. ‘It’s been a long time since anyone called me pretty. Thank you, dear, I appreciate your kindness.’
Jenny pursed her lips. ‘Doesn’t your husband tell you that at least on a weekly basis?’
‘I don’t think he has told me that for eight or nine years.’
Gwen glanced out of the window and Jenny caught the same look of misery she had worn when they’d spoken of Archibald. Combined with his manner earlier and Gwen’s reluctance to admit visitors, it suggested all was not well in their marriage.
‘So, tell me why you came to visit me,’ Jenny said, changing the subject.
‘When we’re back in the street above. I’d rather not be overheard,’ Gwen answered.
‘Now I’m very intrigued and slightly alarmed,’ Jenny said, furrowing her brow.
Once they had alighted, Gwen took Jenny’s arm again, drawing her close, and spoke in a low voice.
‘Augusta wants us to start working from the chop house to make the tincture. I told her I had to speak to you, and she seemed satisfied, but earlier, when I left the house shortly after your visit, that awful man Wolf accosted me in the street and demanded to know why I had not yet given her an answer.’
She shivered.
‘How horrible!’ Jenny growled, outraged at the invasion. ‘You should tell her that you will not stand for it.’
‘I couldn’t do that!’ Gwen said.
‘Well, you should, because he has no right to threaten you. You should have reported him to the nearest police constable.’
‘What would I have said?’ Gwen rolled her eyes. ‘That I am being threatened by an underling of the person for whom I am producing an illegal concoction? I can imagine what the response to that would be, even if I were not a woman.’
Jenny’s stomach twisted. She had tried to speak to Miriam, and been politely but firmly rebuffed at the door. The money she had earned felt tarnished by Miriam’s condemnation of its source. She squeezed Gwen’s arm.
‘You’re right, of course. Well, you’ve told me now, so the next time you speak to one of her people, you can say that we have decided not to.’
‘I thought you would agree to it.’ Gwen slowed her pace. ‘Oh dear, now I’m undecided again. I don’t feel safe, and I would much rather not, but I don’t see what else we can do. Something just feels wrong about it.’
‘What do you think she’s going to do? Try to steal our recipe?’
‘Yes, not to put too fine a point on it. She’s ambitious, and what we have could be worth a lot of money. She didn’t rise to the position she’s in by not being ruthless—’
Gwen stopped walking and turned to Jenny. ‘I don’t like her. There it is. I don’t trust her, either. And I worry that if we get on the wrong side of her there will be repercussions.’
Jenny nodded. ‘I have been wondering whether we should stop making it, or at least stop making it for Augusta,’ she ventured.
‘Why would we do that?’ Gwen’s eyebrows rose. ‘I don’t like the idea of working in her establishment – it feels a little like I’d be walking into a lion’s den to carve bacon – but I don’t think we should stop altogether.’
‘Perhaps we should sell her the recipe for as large a sum as we can manage, and end our association,’ Jenny said.
‘It’s my creation. I’m not going to do that!’ Gwen said firmly.
‘You didn’t want to make it in the first place,’ Jenny pointed out.
‘And you wanted me to!’ Gwen snapped.
‘I did, but…’ Jenny took a deep breath. If she could write to Miriam explaining she had stopped making the hated substance, that would demonstrate her remorse and Miriam might forgive her.
‘I need to end my involvement completely,’ she said. ‘My friend has heard about what we do and will have no part in it, and has cut off all ties with me.’
Gwen sighed sympathetically. ‘I’m very sorry to hear about your friend, but I can’t stop. I won’t! You heard what my husband said this afternoon. His eyesight may only last another three or four years, and then he will be out of a job, and we may be out of a home.’
‘But my uncle said he would help.’
‘I know what your uncle said, and though I thought his offer was generosity and kindness itself, my husband was not happy about it.’
Gwen smiled gently then shook her head, her eyes filling with sadness.
‘We are actually making money, Jenny. More than I ever thought we could. Just one or two more years will give me the chance to save a nest-egg so we can live. You could actually consider leaving your uncle’s home. Isn’t that what you want?’
Two more years. Jenny couldn’t deceive Miriam that long.
‘I want my friend to forgive me. If I could think of an alternative, I would. I do worry about the morality of what we’re doing.’
Gwen looked at her sharply. ‘Did you consider the morality of it when you drugged your uncle and blackmailed me into making you another bottle?’