And once he had, he would do his best to make up for what had happened.
Chapter 26
Bernadette rolled over on the bed. The first thing she noticed was that the room was cold. The second thing was that she was stiff and sore from sleeping fully-clad on a hard bed in the icy air. The third thing that she noticed, as she stood up and winced as her swollen, sore feet touched the floor, was what had woken her.
Voices, somewhere in the building. Loud voices.
Bernadette tensed. The Watch had come looking for her—she knew it. Her parents, enraged at her departure, had sent them to find her and they had infiltrated the building.
Nonsense,she told herself angrily as she stumbled to the table and searched in her suitcase for her purse.It has nothing to do with me.
The Watch could have come looking for anyone. In fact, anybody could be here shouting for any number of reasons. Nonetheless, she felt the urgent need to know. Heart thudding, she put her shawl around her shoulders and walked slowly to the door, stiff legs aching. The voices were not too close, and she pressed her ear to the wood of the door, heart thudding as she strained to hear the words.
Muffled noises drifted up from downstairs. A door shutting, more shouting. She couldn’t hear the words and she stood where she was, too scared to go into the hallway and yet wondering if it was important to hear what was being said.
She was still standing there when she heard voices just by the door.
“Blimey! What a row.”
“’There is a man I can hear shouting.”
The two voices were both female, and one of them must have said something crude, too low to hear, because they both started to laugh.
Bernadette took a deep breath and opened the door. Two women a little older than her gasped as they stared at her.
“By! Sorry!” One of them murmured. “We didn’t know there was someone in there.”
“Sorry if you were sleeping,” the other one said. “You’re blessed with heavy sleep if you could be resting with all that shouting going on.” She gestured to the stairwell.
“What’s happening down there?”
The two women both looked at Bernadette in surprise again when she spoke and Bernadette flushed, noticing that her accent stood out in comparison to their Cockney dialect. She thought at first that they were staring because of how she sounded, but one of them shrugged.
“No idea. Wish we knew. We can just hear a man shouting.”
“We were on the second floor, asleep,” the other woman said. “We heard a man come in. Mrs. Brookham answered the door and there was a big fight. We don’t know what’s happening.”
Bernadette tensed. She could hear the voices now, and she felt sick as she listened to what they were saying. Maybe the first guess was right—maybe the Watch was searching.
“...Madam, please do not obstruct me any further.”
“I’ll obstruct you as I damn well please!” Mrs. Brookham roared back; her voice just as angry as the man’s voice. “This be my boarding-house, and I say who comes in and who does not. And I say this house be shut to men.”
Bernadette felt weak with relief, leaning back on the door frame exhausted. When she was safe, she would ask her aunt to reward Mrs. Brookham. She was doing a terrific job protecting innocent people like herself. She heard footsteps and Mrs. Brookham roared again.
“You go one more step, and I swear I’ll stave your head in. Out!”
Bernadette heard the footsteps stop, and then she froze as the man’s voice spoke again.
“Madam, I advise you to lower that cudgel.”
“Out with you!” Mrs. Brookham shouted, clearly undeterred.Bernadette stood where she was, shivering.
That man has the same accent as me, she thought wildly. She didn’t expect that. The members of the Watch were almost always not of the noble class. Yet, when he spoke, the man sounded like her.
“Madam, stand aside. I beg you,” the man implored. Bernadette felt her frown deepen. Not only did he sound like a nobleman; he sounded familiar. The pitch, the careful intonation.
It can’t be. It can’t be him.
