Page 20 of A Study in Scarlet Women
Lady Holmes stopped and thought for a moment. Then she snorted. “Mrs. Neeley said Roger Shrewsbury is devastated. Said he is sure his disgrace sent his mother into an early grave. How typical of a man, to think the world revolves around him.”
“Wait. Is—”
Lady Holmes marched on in the direction of Livia and Charlotte’s room. “When will you learn to be quiet, Olivia? I have other things to do than standing there and answering your questions—especially today.”
The silence, as Lady Holmes threw open the door, was thunderous.
Her question, when it came at last, deafened. “Whereis Charlotte?”
Charlotte had been everywhere in London this day, or at least it felt that way to her throbbing feet.
By midmorning she—or rather, Miss Caroline Holmes from Tunbridge, typist—had secured a room at Mrs. Wallace’s boardinghouse, a very respectable place at a very respectable location near Cavendish Square.
The rest of her first day of freedom was spent whittling away at her scant funds. She was obliged to acquire a tea kettle, a chipped tea service, a spirit lamp on which to heat water, silverware and flatware, tooth powder, towels, and bed linens—plus a number of other miscellany that a young woman accustomed to living at her parents’ house never needed to worry about.
She tried to think of her purchases as an investment for the future, for when she and Livia—and Bernadine, too—would have a place of their own and direction over their collective existence.
But that dream was taking its last labored breaths, wasn’t it, all alone in a ditch somewhere?
Bernadine might not care much one way or the other, but Livia, Livia who was so proud, so fragile, and so constantly doubtful of herself...
Livia who mistrusted humanity yet feared being alone.
Charlotte had been Livia’s companion; she listened when Livia wanted to talk and remained quiet when Livia wanted to hear herself think. And Charlotte, too, had been a target of Lady Holmes’s wrath, with her refusal of proposal after proposal. But now Livia was unsupported and unshielded. Now she was all alone before both a scornful Society and a pair of livid parents with no other outlet for their anger.
Charlotte passed Cavendish Square, the trees and shrubs of which were dingy with soot. The air in London had always been terrible, but far more so for a woman who must walk all day long than one who had a carriage at her disposal. By midday, as she stood before the mirror in her new room at Mrs. Wallace’s, the top of her ruffled collar was already marked by a ring of grime on the inside. She didn’t want to think of its advanced state of soil after several more hours out and about.
Turning onto Wimpole Street, she made a stop at Atwell & Dewsbury, Pharmaceutical Chemists. Mrs. Wallace had recommended the place for the purchase of incidentals. Charlotte had visited the shop earlier in the day to buy bathing soap and matches—and to take a look at the selection of books that customers could borrow for a penny apiece.
But of course she hadn’t thought of everything. This time Mr. Atwell kindly sold her some stationery. And a package of one hundred perforated pieces of tissue for the water closet, wrapped in brown paper and without either of them ever mentioning it by name.
As she stepped out of the shop, a dapper older gentleman sauntered past on the opposite side of the street. He looked so much like Sir Henry she came to a dead halt.
Had she been angrier at him or herself? The latter, most likely. Livia had warned her repeatedly not to trust their father’s promises. But she had been deaf to those warnings—willfully deaf. Not that she thought Sir Henry the kind of paragon he most emphatically wasn’t, but because she believed that her good opinion and good will meant something to him.
They probably did, but not enough, in the end, to make any difference.
Mrs. Wallace’s place was around the corner. When Charlotte walked in, most of the boarders were milling about in the common room, socializing before supper.
“I’ll bet the girl’s mum is having a right laugh this minute,” said a vivacious brunette. “Goodness knows I would, if the old woman what caught my daughter and acted so hoity-toity about it is found dead the next morning.”
Charlotte’s ears heated as if a curling iron had been held too close.
“You don’t think the girl’s family had something to do with it?” said another woman. She was no more than twenty-one and looked excitable.
“Which old woman?” asked Charlotte.
The brunette turned toward her. “You must be the new girl. Miss Holmes, is it?” she asked, her demeanor friendly.
“Yes. Nice to meet you, Miss...”
“Whitbread. Nan Whitbread, and this is Miss Spooner.”
They all shook hands.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt, but what you were talking about sounded fascinating.”
“Oh, it is. My cousin works at one of the fancy dressmakers on Regent Street,” said Miss Whitbread. “And she kept hearing about it all day from the clients. They weren’t talking to her, of course, but among themselves, about the lady what caught her married son having a go at this young lady, hung the young lady out to dry, and then woke up dead the next morning.”
