Ether & Elephants (17 page)

Tom handed her a small portfolio from the rear seat of the car before closing her door and coming around. “All the information we have is in there.” He handed her the card from Professor Wiggins to be added to the file. “I thought we’d start with the pub where I met Polly, and proceed to the others on the list.”

“That sounds perfectly rational.” Nell’s gloved fingertips flipped through pages of information as Tom started the car. He couldn’t see her well through the corner of his eye while driving, but he did get a glimpse of the picture of Polly when Nell lifted it to the top of the stack and laid it on her lap. “She’s lovely, or she was, anyway. How old was she when you met?”

“Eighteen, or so she said.” That seemed so young now. “One year my junior.” And two years older than Nell. “She seemed older, though. She was certainly…knowledgeable about the ways of the world.” In truth, she’d led Tom about like a bull with a nose ring.

“Was she your first?” Did he imagine a tremor in her voice?

“No.” He hadn’t thought he could get more miserable, but she was proving him wrong. He swallowed hard, determined to hold nothing back. “Back in Wapping, there were any number of barmaids willing to educate a young cardsharp, and I was far from being a saint. Once we moved to Hadrian House, though, there was a long gap. Papa made it clear right off that the housemaids were not to be touched, even if they were the aggressors. I suppose by the time I came to Oxford, I was thinking as much with my…lower regions as with the proper brain. I told myself one of us needed some experience. None of those things was entirely true, though. They were all just excuses for giving in to temptation because I was a randy young idiot. It’s not something I’m proud of.” He was, however, rather proud of the fact that he’d kept his voice from shaking. Talking about sex with Nell, even the wrong sort of sex, meaning sex with anyone other than Nell, was having an uncomfortable effect on those same lower regions.

“I understand about the girls in Wapping,” Nell said. She gazed at the portrait of Polly. “The rest…well, I suppose it was simply that we were never meant to be. I’m sorry for that, but better to know before we married than after.”

He wanted to protest but wasn’t sure he could. Not until they were sure about all the ramifications of his idiocy. He settled for abject apology. “You do know how sorry I am to have hurt you?”

She looked over and gave him a heartrendingly sad smile. “I know. I’ve forgiven you, Tom. It wasn’t easy, but I did. We’ll always be family. I won’t go through the rest of my life hating you for breaking my heart. All that would serve is to destroy myself, and any future happiness I might find. I deserve better than that, just as you deserve better than to live a life filled with regret. Move on, dearest. It’s time. We both have our lives ahead of us, and we both deserve to make the best of them. Simply not together. I’ve come to terms with that and I think perhaps you should too.”

There was absolutely nothing he could add to that, so he focused on the road. Only a few minutes later, he pulled into the lane beside a large, boisterous pub, or at least it had been a rollicking place a decade earlier. “Very well. Are you sure you want to come in?” While women weren’t forbidden in public houses, most ladies considered them a bit depraved for an afternoon call.

“We’re looking for Charlie.” Her voice cracked. “Or at least to find out what became of him. He may or may not be your son, but he
is
my pupil and I care for him. I’m not backing down now.” She unlocked the door of the car and let herself out before he could come around to assist her.

Well now, she was in a snit. Of all of them, Nell was the one who never forgot her manners.

Once inside the pub, Tom’s eyes adjusted quickly to the dimness. The place was full, just as it had been, but the clientele was older and quieter. There seemed to be more workingmen and far fewer university boys than he remembered. They stepped up to the bar and Tom studied the publican. It was the same man, though a decade older and more tired than he had been. “What’ll it be?” The man’s speech slurred slightly, something else Tom didn’t remember.

“Mr. Watterson, I doubt you remember me, but I’m here to ask about a barmaid who worked here almost a decade ago. Her name was Polly.”

Watterson grunted. “Barmaids come and go. Can’t remember the one from last year, let alone years ago.”

Tom held up the drawing. “At least look at her picture. Does she bring back any memories at all?”

Watterson narrowed his rheumy eyes and squinted at the drawing. “Polly, you said? Aye, I remember her. Had to let her go. Got herself in a family way.”

Tom let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “That would have been her. Do you recall anything else? Where she was from? Were her parents living?”

“No idea.” Watterson squinted again. “Well, maybe her dad came round. Or her fancy-man. Can’t recall.”

“Do you remember when you fired her?” Nell’s soft voice didn’t require compulsion to encourage the man to talk.

Watterson shook his head. “No, milady. Don’t keep my ledgers that long. Think she came to me from the Boar and Bull, though. Bartlett’s the sort to keep papers.”

The Boar and Bull was one of the names on their list. Tom held out his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Watterson.” He shook the snarled hand and slipped a ten-pound note onto the bar with his other. “Best of luck to you, sir.”

The barman snorted. “Best of luck. Those days have passed, son. But thank ye, just the same.” He pocketed the note with an unexpected agility and waved as they wove their way back to the door.

“And on to the next,” Nell said. “Back to the car?”

“No,” Tom replied. “From here we’re on foot for a bit. The next few pubs are all in the area.”

Nell sighed. “Well, it’s a good thing I wore walking boots.” She lifted her hem over a puddle, hopefully of beer, as they stepped out into the sunlight.

They had no better luck at the Crossed Daggers, the White Hart or the Red Lion. Fourth on the street was the Boar and Bull. Tom mentally crossed his fingers as they went inside.

Nell marched straight up to the bar. “Do you sell tea?”

The barman was burly, bald and wrinkled with age. He stalked over and bore down on her. Tom moved to intervene, but paused when the man looked at her and said, “Yes, ma’am. Would you like to take that in the ladies’ parlor?”

“N—” Tom began, but Nell ignored him.

She beamed up at the man. “I should like that. Will you join me please, Mr. Bartlett? I have something I need to ask you about.”

“Aye, miss.” The barman looked over his shoulder at one of the maids. “Lizzie, a pot o’Darjeeling in the ladies’, please.” He came around the bar and took Nell by the elbow. “Right this way, ma’am.”

“Excellent. Come along, Tom.”

He could do little more than follow like a chastened pup. She’d been entirely silent in the last three pubs. What had happened to change her mind?

Bartlett seated Nell, but looked at Tom, quirking a bushy gray eyebrow.

Nell calmly tucked her breathing apparatus into the brim of her hat and gestured for Tom to remove his. “Mr. Bartlett, this is my foster brother, Sir Thomas Devere. My name is Miss Hadrian. Do sit, both of you. This is a matter of some urgency.”

The men shared a look of complete confusion, and both, lacking the manners or will to argue, sat. The maid bustled in with the tea, and Nell poured three cups before she spoke again. “Mr. Bartlett, do you remember a girl who used to work for you by the name of Pauline Berry?” Clearly she’d checked the variation of names as listed by Professor Wiggins. She gestured for Tom to get out the image, which he did.

“Aye. Poll, we called her. Worked for me a couple of times. Decent barmaid, got the chaps to drink up their fair share, but couldn’t be bothered to wipe up or do any other chores. Then one night, poof, she’s gone. Never heard from her again.” Bartlett scratched his shiny scalp. “Last time must’ve been five years ago. Didn’t even ask for a reference, not that time. She’s not working in Cambridge right now. Word got out she was earning a bit on the side.”

“Isn’t that considered normal for a barmaid in a university town?” Tom sipped his tea and watched the older man, looking for signs of fear, or lying. Most people didn’t know there were visual tics that could tip off a lie, if the person observing knew what to look for.

Bartlett’s pupils didn’t dilate, and his eyes didn’t drift to the left or right. “Right enough, but she was doing a bit more than earning a coin on her back. Begging your pardon, miss.”

Nell smiled gently. “It’s all right. Just tell us what we need to know. I promise not to have the vapors.”

“Well, she was doing more than whoring. She started seducing the rich boys and threatening to tell their families what they done.” Bartlett’s lips formed into a thin line. “After that, none of us here wanted to hire her. Don’t want to bring that kind of trouble down on our establishments.”

Tom grimaced. “Sounds like our Polly, all right. Any idea where she might have gone?”

“If she didn’t want to give up the game, she might’ve just moved it,” Bartlett said. “Edinburgh, maybe, but I’d think Oxford, first. It’s a lot closer and they don’t talk so funny.”

That tied in nicely with what they’d already learned.

“One last thing, Mr. Bartlett.” Nell poured the publican more tea. “As far as we can tell, yours is the first establishment where Miss Berry, or Berrycloth, or Barclay, worked. Do you know anything about where she might have been before she worked for you the first time? Did she come with references?”

“No.” Bartlett sipped his tea. “As it happens, I know where she came from. Her mother was a barmaid back in the day, name of Josie Sterling. Had a little cottage in a village not far from here. Knew her when I was a lad, till she married a butcher called Landers. It was her brought Poll to me the first time. Went by Landers, then, till she up and married that Barry-clow fellow.”

Nell’s eyes flew wide. “Do you know for certain that she married?”

Bartlett chortled. “Said she did. Not like I went to the church and saw it happen.”

“Do you know which church?” Nell’s voice was soft and full of encouragement, but without a trace of compulsion. “And when was this?”

Tom swallowed hard to keep from peppering the man with questions he probably couldn’t answer.

“Nah,” Bartlett said. “Never cared. If you do, you might check the parish where her mum lives. I suppose it was ten, maybe eleven years ago now. Before the smoke and the masks, before we had a telephone, or even teletext.”

That was a fairly detailed account of a date well before Tom had known Polly. Nell must realize it too. Her lower lip quivered. “Is it possible that Mrs. Landers is still living?”

“Far as I know,” Bartlett said. “The butcher passed when Poll was just a girl. Josie started taking in sewing to make ends meet, but it was never much. That’s why the girl needed a job so bad.”

Tom opened his mouth then closed it again. Nell was doing just fine on her own. She’d already found them more information than he’d done at the last four pubs, or in the past nine years for that matter.

“Could you possibly give us Mrs. Landers’s direction?” She sipped her tea and smiled, as if this chat was as innocent as talking about the weather. “We truly need to find Polly, and her mother may well know where she is.”

Bartlett scratched his head again and furrowed his brow.

“We’d be ever so grateful,” Nell said. “Wouldn’t we, Tom?” Turning toward him, she mouthed,
Pay the man.

This time, Tom pulled a twenty-pound note, a small fortune to an average man, from his pocket and tucked it under his saucer on the table, making sure the older man had a good glimpse. “There might even be a reward from an interested party,” he said to no one in particular, “but if Mr. Bartlett can’t help, we’ll just keep looking. Come along, Nell.” He stood, moving slowly enough to be stopped.

“Village is called Gander,” Bartlett blurted. “Ask anyone for Mrs. Landers. She’s got a little cottage just off the High Street. If she’s not there, check the graveyard. Haven’t seen her in five years, so I can’t be sure she’s walking.”

“Thank you so kindly,” Nell said, allowing Tom to assist her to her feet. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Bartlett. And quite a lovely pot of tea.”

Bartlett bowed his head several times. “Thank you, miss. Sir.”

Nell turned to Tom as they walked out into the late afternoon bustle. “The car, now?”

“Right,” Tom said. “Time to take a gander at Gander, I believe.”

Nell groaned, but kept up as he strode back to his steam car.

* * *

Gander wasn’t much different from any other small English village. There was an old stone church, not remarkably old or dramatically beautiful, just squat, stone and functional. The High Street was lined with two- and three-story Tudor buildings, and a neat, grassy square marked the center of the buildings. It wasn’t as full of black soot as London or even Cambridge, but it was foggy enough to warrant masks, unlike the villages near Hadrian Hall or Black Heath, which had adopted the use of air scrubbers in all their chimneys and smokestacks. Nell couldn’t wait for the day when Wink’s invention became universally employed throughout the realm. She
hated
breathing masks, even the miniature ones Wink had developed for ladies, but as a singer, she would never risk her voice by going without one.

Tom pulled the car to a stop in front of the village pub. “I’ll go in and ask, unless you’d rather?”

“Go ahead.” So, he was in a snit about her getting the information from Bartlett. Even raised by Merrick and Caro, he was a man in a man’s world. Why did it have to be so hard for him to accept help from a woman? Perhaps it was just her. He didn’t want to be bested by sweet, helpless, useless Nell.

She was done being the family mouse. Being demure had never gotten her anywhere. It was time to be her own woman.

Tom returned to the car, pale and nearly quivering with tension. “She’s alive. Her cottage is just a few blocks from here.”

“You want to walk or drive?” The walk would give him time to channel that nervous energy building inside him at the thought of meeting his possible mother-in-law.