Everyone looked at her. It was crowded around the range. Outside, there was a light drizzle falling, and people were jostling to get in front of the warm fire to dry themselves. Marianne took the note and thanked the woman, and slipped away to the other room, where only Kathleen was hunched in a pile of blankets by the window, coughing.

  She sat in her little curtained-off space, and looked carefully at the outside of the folded paper first. It simply said IVY, printed in a steady and neat hand. The handwriting continued with a confident cursive inside. This was someone who had been schooled well.

  The message was short.

  Cartridge Street, tomorrow night, at seven. Walk up and down once and then wait by the lamp on the corner. You will be collected. Yours, C.

  Marianne folded back a corner of the blanket and pulled out a large notebook. Inside, she had stashed all the notes she had received. She compared the handwriting to the one from Mistress Decker, but while both were looping and beautiful, they were from different authors.

  “C” probably referred to Cecilia. She had no idea where Cartridge Street was, but she had no doubt that the others would be able to tell her. She tucked this note into her book, and placed it back under the blanket again. There was nowhere to hide anything in this place, but no one had anything worth stealing.

  She went back out to the main room, and tried to smile and relax, and push aside her worries, for one night.

  SHE SPENT THE WHOLE day arguing with herself about whether she ought to answer the invitation or not. But she had to assume it was from Mistress Decker, if indirectly, and if so, it was her best chance to getting close to the woman and asking her about Mary Sewell and the others.

  She wore the cloak she had been given by Cecilia, as it seemed only polite, and with a list of directions from Doddy and the others, made her way to Cartridge Street. It was handily less than two miles away, and she arrived in good time. It was a street of small businesses and shops which were closing for the night, and it already quiet. It wasn’t a thoroughfare to anywhere, and was almost spooky in its eerie silence compared to the other parts of London. A dog barked far off, echoing, and made her shiver.

  She walked up and down, once, very slowly, and then stopped by the junction where the street joined a larger one. She waited under the lamp, watching the cabs and omnibuses rattle past. A man cycled past on an Ordinary that was too small for him, and his knees caught on the handlebars with every revolution of the pedals. His curses followed him down the street but he seemed determined to put up with the discomfort.

  Someone coughed behind her.

  She turned and Cecilia was upon her, enfolding her in one of her dramatic and unseemly displays of affection. “Ivy! You came!”

  “Of course. You were very kind to me before.”

  “Yes, we were, weren’t we? And you know that you owe us – you are one of us, now! So yes. You could hardly not come, could you?” It was a veiled warning from the woman, and made all the more sinister by the light and smiling way she delivered the threat.

  “Indeed.” Marianne smiled thinly. Cecilia looped her arm into Marianne’s, just tightly enough to let Marianne know that she was not going to get away, and led her back along the street. She was small, but she was strong. Marianne started to imagine her as a well-groomed bulldog.

  “So,” Marianne said, “what’s this about?”

  “We’re having a meeting.”

  “Who is we?”

  “Our merry band of sisters. This is our meeting place. Hush. I would advise you to watch, listen and learn – don’t speak. You’re too new to speak, yet.”

  “I can agree to that, but wait, before we go in. What is this meeting about?” Marianne asked desperately.

  She did not receive an answer. Cecilia opened a red door and entered without a knock or a shout. She pushed Marianne in front of her, urging her along a narrow corridor. They passed one closed door on their left, which probably led to the front parlour. They went through a cold, dark kitchen at the back of the house and out into a small yard. The kitchen had smelled strange, and she realised that it was unused and dusty. Kitchens ought to smell of food. Marianne looked around in confusion. Cecilia didn’t explain anything. She opened a rough wooden door and took Marianne into the alleyway at the back of the yards, and along, and then through another door, through another yard, into the back of another house, and up two flights of stairs.

  Marianne could hear the chatter and buzz of merrymaking before the door to the brightly-lit, red-painted room opened.

  Cecilia towed her inside and pushed her against a wall, urging her along until she was in a corner. The room was full of women. Some held glasses of sparkling wine, although one woman was swigging from a bottle of port.

  Cecilia leaned close to Marianne’s ear and hissed, “Stay there, listen and learn. Say nothing unless you are spoken to directly. You can never speak of this again; you will soon learn why.”

  She pulled back, smiled brightly as if she’d just been confessing some secret love affair or other delightful escapade, and spun away into the crowd.

  Marianne was glad of the chance to simply look around and assess the situation.

  There were nearly thirty women in the room, and it was almost uncomfortably crowded. She was glad that she was tall and could see over many of the shoulders, although some of the women were wearing hats and bonnets. No one looked at Marianne for more than a second or two, their gazes registering her but passing over her as a subject of no interest. She spotted Katie, who twitched her nose as a kind of acknowledgment before turning away. Marianne tuned into the voices around her. There was a range of accents, marking the women as coming from all classes, but the clothes that they wore were all, to a woman, fine ones. They were dressed as if for a casual evening at a friend’s house; expensive, tailored skirts and jackets, lace trimmings, velvet borders, all in the very height of today’s fashions.

  Then a woman rose up a foot higher than everyone else. Marianne couldn’t see for certain but it was likely she had stepped onto a box or low platform. Everyone turned to look at her, as a hush settled over the room.

  She was in her late middle age. She had a painted face, a little too crudely, as if desperate to erase the signs of her years. She dripped with jewels. While the others were dressed for an evening at home with good company, she was ready to step into a ballroom, with bare shoulders and long white gloves, and silk and satin draped artfully over her.

  Marianne knew immediately that this was Mistress Decker, at last. She was no kind of elephant. She was stately but she put Marianne in mind of a solidly-built racehorse.

  “Ladies!” she announced, and then paused for effect. In a warm tone, smiling all around, she went on. “Ladies. Sisters. Dear friends. I call our monthly meeting to order. Thank you all so much for coming. The first business of the evening is from our dear Vera, who has made some amended pockets for our bustles. Vera, my darling, would you bring them here?”

  Marianne watched and listened in a growing mixture of horror and admiration as Vera, a pinched spinster-type with iron-grey hair and a clipped tone, demonstrated hidden pockets that were cleverly sewn into fashionable skirts. They were easily accessible by the wearer and cavernous, and clearly designed for exactly the type of shoplifting escapade that Marianne had found herself embroiled in.

  After Vera, others were called up, to report on their activities in various areas of the city. It seemed that the whole town was carved up between the gang as a whole, and all paid homage – and tithes – to Mistress Decker.

  The litany of law-breaking went on. Particularly large heists were met with ripples of applause. Some women reported near misses and close escapes, and the audience laughed and gasped in genuine delight.

  Marianne could hardly believe what she was hearing. The audacity of the whole enterprise was dizzying. She looked at the variety of women in the crowded room, searching for anyone familiar. There was Katie again, and Cecilia.

  Though when she finally spotted one more face that she knew, her stomach lurched.

  Of all the people to see here, she had not expected to lay eyes on Caroline Vane.

  Yet she should have thought it could be possible. Had they not discussed it, she and Adelia? Now, it was confirmed.

  Marianne shrank back against the wall, and pulled at her bonnet, adjusting it to hide her face, should Caroline look her way. There was no way of knowing if Caroline had already spotted her, but for the moment, the woman’s attention was fixed on Mistress Decker, just like the rest of the audience.

  Marianne’s heart thudded as all the things she thought she knew about Caroline began to fall into new places. She had to get out of the room, and get away from the clutches of these scheming women. Were they not afraid of the law?

  But as she was growing to realise, even the law could be bought.

  Eventually the final agenda item was reached and worked through, and as Mistress Decker stepped down from the platform, the women around her began to form little knots and conversation soon buzzed higher and higher. Marianne remained in her place, torn as to what she ought to do. Here was her chance, at last, to speak to Mistress Decker and ask her about Eliza Payne, about Grace Clatterbridge, and most of all, about Mary Sewell. The thought that her close friend had been one of these criminals was like a knife in Marianne’s gut.

  She almost didn’t want to hear the truth. Once it was confirmed, then her memory of Mary would be forever tainted.

  Her hesitancy lost her the chance. Mistress Decker swept out of the room. Marianne took a few steps as if to follow her, and Cecilia materialised by Marianne’s side.

  “Champagne for you,” she announced, thrusting a glass into Marianne’s hand.

  She took it and sipped at it. Well, free alcohol was never going to be unwelcome, and she might as well make something good out of the evening.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” Cecilia asked after a few seconds passed.

  “No. You advised me not to speak. I have listened, however, and I have learned.”

  Cecilia cocked her head, and tapped Marianne coquettishly on the nose with her long, elegant finger. “Now, now. You look thoughtful, and I do not like that. Don’t start thinking about all of this. It will do you no good at all. Thinking leads to silly decisions. Last month, Charlotte Beveridge thought she could go to the police and speak to them, and thought that they would pay her handsomely for the information.”

  “I gather that they did not.”

  “Oh, she didn’t even get that far. And what a silly girl! You earn far more with us than ratting us out to them. It really isn’t worth it. And now she won’t earn a thing.”

  Marianne felt cold. “Did you ... has she ... where is she now?” She feared the very worst.

  Cecilia must have known what she was thinking. She giggled as if murder was a joke. “Oh, look at your face! What a picture you are, Ivy. How glorious. She is in India, and she shan’t be coming back.”

  “Oh.”

  “Unless you have a taste for the burning sun and the attentions of desperate officers, I would advise you to stay silent on everything you’ve seen and heard tonight.”

  “What happens next?”

  Cecilia looked her up and down. “You speak like a lady, but you dress like a fishwife. You must smarten up and obtain better lodgings, and then you will come out with me once again.”

  “I...”

  “Do not thank me! You will be such an asset to us all, and you will fit in very well, once you are settled. You are a woman of quality who has fallen low in the world – oh, your history is written on your face – but we will help you to rise again. Come now. Let me lead you out of this mess of people.”

  “I thought I might stay...”

  “No,” Cecilia said, very bluntly. “You are not ready to mingle. Only to learn. You are an apprentice. Follow me.”

  Marianne had no choice. She had to quickly turn to one side as Caroline went past her, but she did not think that she had been spotted. She followed Cecilia out the way that they had come in, and she was almost sorry to leave the bright lights, drinking and generally convivial atmosphere behind.

  What have I become, she thought, that I cleave to the company of thieves? She almost laughed at herself.

  Cecilia abandoned her where she had been met, by the lamp at the corner of the street. “You can get home from here,” she said. “Go carefully.”

  “If I do get new lodgings, how will I let you know?”

  Cecilia laughed. “We will know.” She patted Marianne’s shoulder with too much familiarity, and shivered in the cold air, an affected gesture to signal that she needed to get back inside. Marianne watched her go. She was obviously heading back to the party.

  Marianne turned and sighed, and let a few cabs roll past her before deciding exactly where she was going to go. She did not head for the Blackwall Buildings. She was not likely to get back there before she was locked out for the night, anyway.

  Instead, she turned to Adelia’s lodgings. She had a lot of news to share with her friend.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Marianne walked briskly, feeling vulnerable and exposed even in her cloak which she held tightly around herself. Cecilia was a dangerous threat all dressed up as sweetness and light. Marianne allowed herself to think with sympathy of her friend Mary, and the others. If they had been tangled up with this gang of women, how much was of their own choice – and how far had they been coerced, bullied and threatened into being part of the crowd of thieves in stolen finery?

  But nothing about the gang had suggested murderers in their midst. Exile to India, while awful, was better than being killed.

  Thinking about murder spurred her on. The streets were in their night-time character now, and the only other women she saw were those she would not care to welcome into a drawing room. She almost laughed. She would throw herself out of a drawing room in her current state! It started to rain, quite suddenly, and she was glad of her sturdy outerwear. She began to run.

  She reached the door to the house where Adelia lodged, and knocked, but when there was no immediate answer she opened it and ran along the hall, and up the stairs to Adelia’s rooms. She had a bedroom and a sitting room, all nicely furnished. Well, nicely furnished under the piles of papers and books.

  Adelia was in her sitting room, in a loose Chinese-style robe, with her hair undone, reading a pamphlet by a lamp on a small round table near her comfortable chair. She jumped up in surprise as Marianne burst in.

  “Quite the bachelor life,” Marianne said in approval. There was even a small bottle of spirits on a tray, and a chunky glass.

  “Marianne! What has happened?”

  “Everything. I must tell you all. I have seen Mistress Decker, for a start.”

  “You are soaking wet.”

  “I am perfectly fine.” Marianne shrugged out of her cloak and folded it back on itself, to keep the wet side from harming the furniture.

  “Go into the bedroom and hang it up over the washbowl. And while you’re in there, find yourself a housecoat or a robe or a wrapper or something. I am not lighting a fire at this hour of the night, not even for guests, and you’ll soon be cold.”

  Marianne rolled her eyes but she obeyed. It was actually rather nice to be told what to do. It was refreshing to have someone else take responsibility for a few moments, at least. She carried the heavy cloak through to the bedroom and pulled the door almost closed behind her.

  She was half in the freestanding mahogany wardrobe, choosing a robe to wear, when she heard voices in the sitting room. She froze. The woman sounded familiar, but it was not Cecilia.

  “Oh! You are not ... no, you are not her,” said the intruder.

  “I am sorry?” That was Adelia, sounding very stiff and displeased. “Who are you? Get out, this instant!”

  Marianne knew exactly who it was. She crept to the crack in the door, and saw nothing but a fine flash of red clothing, and could not see the woman’s face.

  “I am ... I am sorry. I was looking for Marianne Starr, but I can see I mistook you. You are of a similar height.”

  “I did not catch your name,” Adelia insisted.

  “I did not give it,” the woman snapped back, and whirled around, and left. The main stairs were uncarpeted, and her boots sounded loud as they echoed down the passageway.

  Marianne opened the door. “That was Caroline Vane.”

  “That was Miss Vane?” Adelia said in astonishment. She was standing in the room, holding the bottle as if she were prepared to smash it on the intruder’s head.

  “It was. Are you going to throw the bottle? If so, might I relieve you of the contents before you do so? It would be a shame to waste it – brandy, is it?”

  “It is. Here, I have another glass. Sit down. How did she come to be here? Unless my visit to her brother has alarmed her. But how could that be?”

  “That is part of what I need to tell you.” Marianne and Adelia settled themselves around the lamp-lit table. The fiery alcohol burned and brought her a fresh spark of life. “I have just seen her myself, at this meeting where Mistress Decker presided. I did not think that she had seen me.”

  “But she must have done.”

  “Indeed,” said Marianne, and she took another gulp of brandy. “I am so very sorry, Adelia, for I feel that I have led danger right to your door. She must have seen me, and followed me, and burst in here – and seen you – and assumed she was mistaken. But she was not, in a way. And she is a clever woman. She will go away and think about her mistake and she will likely make enquiries, and then this will bring trouble right back to you.” Marianne pressed her hand to her forehead and groaned. Too much brandy, too quickly, and on a permanently empty stomach. “I do not know what we should do next.”

  Once again, to Marianne’s relief, Adelia stood up decisively. “I shall call Jack,” she said. “Just as you told me I should. Before I made mistakes of my own.”

 

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