Page 53 of The Book of Lost Stories
‘There is no question of that.’ Alys rose. ‘Now, I believe Thomas is waiting in his study to discuss one or two business matters, so I will leave you.’
‘I have near finished copying outRavish’d, Alys. Another day or two and it is done.’
‘Good, for I mean to go to the Minerva Press with the manuscript myself and tell them who I am, so putting a stop to Mr Coalport’s pretensions once and for all, for they can deny the rumours without divulging my name, you know.’
‘So long as you are not seen going in,’ Letty said anxiously.
‘Unlikely. Have I ever thanked you for all the work you do for me, copying things out so faithfully? What would I do without you? And what in the world have I said to make you cry, dearest Letty?’
‘N-nothing, do not regard it,’ she sobbed, and vanished into a handkerchief.
*
‘The young lady paid a visit to a Mrs Radcliffe,’ Jarvis said. ‘A lady novelist, she is.’
‘So she is – or was – and quite a famous one,’ Rayven said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you have been exerting your charms on the servants again to obtain such information, Jarvis?’
‘The cooks can’t bear to see a skinny man, sir, that’s the way of it. But the next house Miss Weston called at, she’d been to before.’
‘Yes, her companion, Miss Grimshaw, is staying with relatives in Cheapside; is that the place?’
‘A very respectable family,’ agreed Jarvis. ‘And an uncommonly pretty maidservant shaking out her duster. She says the old biddy – Miss Grimshaw – has got a caller.’
‘Acaller?’
‘A retired tea merchant called Puncheon is growing very particular in his attentions. Full of juice, he is, and a widower.’
Rayven tried, and failed, to bring Miss Grimshaw’s undistinguished features to mind, then dismissed the matter. ‘Did Miss Weston go home again after that?’
‘Yes. Later she come out again with Mrs Rivers and got into a carriage with Mr Nathaniel Hartwood and a young fair lady. Rabbit-nosed.’
‘Probably Miss Bella Hartwood.’
‘Mr Hartwood seems to call often,’ Jarvis commented, with a look at his master. ‘Mr Rivers, he’s out most nights, and looking burnt to the socket, racketing around Town with his flash friends, Mr Hartwood among them.’
‘Well, you can’t say Nat Hartwood looks burnt to the socket. He must have sold his soul to the Devil.’
‘Maybe he has, sir. You remember asking me to keep my ears open for any word about that odd set-up, the Brethren, as they call themselves, that meet at Lord Chase’s house near Kew?’
Rayven nodded. ‘You have heard something?’
‘Well, many men – and a few women – go there, on nights when the moon is full, for some kind of unholy meeting.’
‘That is pretty well common knowledge, and although they go masked, I dare say most of them know each other.’
‘But what isn’t so much known, sir, is there’s an inner circle of the Brethren that stays behind when the others go. The names of George Rivers and Nathaniel Hartwood are bandied about, among others, as members of it.’
‘Are they indeed? And was Gervase Stavely one of that select group, do you think?’
‘So they say.’
‘Captain Stavely made some enquiries into the Brethren and was assured it was a drinking and wenching club: all the usual excesses, but nothing so bad that it might cause his brother to take his own life.’
‘I expect that’s what most of ’em get up to – the common run of Brethren, as you might say,’ Jarvis said tolerantly, ‘but there’s nasty rumours doing the rounds of what Lord Chase and his particular cronies might be getting up to. Them girls found dead and mutilated in the river nearby didn’t rightly help matters.’
‘Mutilated?’
‘Raped, and carved up with symbols and stuff. Although they’re the sort of drabs no one comes forward to claim, the local people have been putting two and two together, and they don’t like the answer.’
