‘I really cannot say.’
Our destination was Sharland’s Bespoke Tailoring. There was a lantern burning at the back of the shop. Mr Sharland came to the door himself, then his wife appeared behind him. Garth followed Sharland into his cutting room and they did their business in low voices. Mrs Sharland took the baby from me.
‘Small,’ she said. ‘Boy or girl?
It was only then I realized he didn’t have a name.
The sky was getting lighter as we walked back.
I said, ‘You knew? When you met me at Dorchester, you knew why I’d been sent for?’
He said nothing.
I stood still, to force him to stop and face me.
I said, ‘You knew what Sofy’s indisposition was. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It wasn’t my place.’
‘Whose child is it?’
‘You know I cannot answer that.’
We walked on in silence and he handed me in at our door. The things I might have said … I love you, Tom Garth … take me away from this madhouse … take me away from this family.
‘Nellie,’ he said gently, ‘I’m His Majesty’s equerry. I do as I’m asked, no more and no less. Whatever I see, whatever I hear, I forget, and you would do well to do the same.’
I said, ‘And have you done all you were asked to do?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘For now. I shall go home and see to my own business. Bid you good day, Nellie.’
Mrs Chevely was on the stairs. She’d made a caudle of eggs and brandy and was carrying it up to Sofy.
I said, ‘Who chose the Sharlands?’
She put her finger to her lips. There were maids about. The house was starting to wake up.
‘They’re good people,’ she said. ‘To be relied upon. And they’ll be paid well enough.’
Then Ernie Cumberland came slithering out of his hole, dressed but unshaven. He had left off his eye patch. His bad eye was sunken and silvery. Many people thought him handsome in spite of it but he made my skin crawl.
‘All done?’ he said. ‘All squared?’
I said, ‘So that’s why you came, to see everything tidied away.’
‘Had to be done. Couldn’t keep the thing here. You weren’t seen, I hope? And Sharland got his money?’
‘All I did was hand the baby to Mrs Sharland. Garth saw to everything else.’
‘Damned well think so too,’ he said. ‘In the circumstances it was the very least the old goat could do.’
I said, ‘What do you mean? Why should Garth have any obligation?’
He laughed.
He said, ‘Sofy didn’t tell you, then? Give the girl her due, she can keep a secret. But you’re a woman of the world. You can put two and two together.’
Garth. My Garth, not Sofy’s. Ernie’s words hit me so hard I felt I couldn’t breathe and he saw it.
‘But don’t you go gossiping,’ he said. ‘If it gets about I’ll know who’s to blame. What’s done is done and the best kindness you can do Sofy is to forget.’
Well, I didn’t see it that way. I knew how unhappy secrets can devour a person, how I’d longed to tell someone what Enoch Heppenstall had done to me and how I loved Tom Garth. Anyway, I owed Ernie Cumberland nothing. I was determined to hear the truth however much it hurt. Mrs Chevely hardly left Sofy’s side that day. When I did catch her alone, when I cornered her in the upper stair hall and asked if Garth was the boy’s father she simply held up her hand and shook her head.
‘And don’t dare ask Her Royal Highness,’ she said. ‘She’s too weak to be troubled with distressing questions.’
But Sofy wasn’t weak at all. She was rested and greatly reduced and Dr Milman predicted she would be well enough to sit out of bed in a day or two. When Mrs Che left me to read to her for a while I seized my opportunity.
I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I thought I was your friend.’
‘You are, you are,’ she said. ‘And I did want to write to you but you were cross with me and then, after my situation was discovered, I was forbidden to write to anyone. You do see?’ She had turned to Minny first, then Minny confided in Elizabeth and Elizabeth went to the Queen. The Queen had asked only that the matter be dealt with in silence and far away from Windsor and the King.
I said, ‘You know I have to hear it from you. Whose child is it?’
She would not look at me. She said, ‘I think you know.’
‘Ernie hinted at something. It was hard to believe it but I suppose I must, if I hear it from you too.’
‘Oh Nellie,’ she whispered, ‘he told me he loved me. And I know he does love me, in his way. But now I’m ruined.’
