“He had to go and see a lawyer. Something to do with investments of Grandpapa’s just coming to light, I think.”
Harriet thought for a second, then took the girl by the shoulder, saying, “My dear, we need you to come with us. Go and fetch your cloak.” Brightening with excitement, Susan turned to ran upstairs again.
Crowther had taken the piece of paper from her before she went and looked approvingly at the profile and full-faced image of Richard Bywater. The picture was accurate. Once again, it seemed as if much of his and Mrs. Westerman’s luck seemed to depend on the people their friends chose to employ.
Gregory approached. “The carriage is ready, ma’am.”
“And where is Mrs. Service?”
Susan came downstairs again at a pace. “Oh, she is teaching Uncle Eustache his ABCs. Shall I tell her we are going out?”
Harriet glanced impatiently at the door. “No need, my dear. Gregory, will you tell Mrs. Service that Mr. Crowther and I have taken Lady Susan out and will return before dinner?”
The footman nodded and Harriet took Susan’s hand and made for the doorway.
2
“What is the day, Sam?”
“Wednesday, Mrs. Bligh.” Sam was looking better for a sleeping, though his eyes were still red. He ate the bread he was handed with an appetite but Jocasta could see the thought of his friends pass over his face from time to time.
“An opera night. . Does the servant from the house work there on opera night?”
He shrugged. “I should think. She was following on when the Missus and Milky Boy were coming back that night I watched.”
Jocasta looked unseeing at the cobbler’s tools around her, hung up and waiting for their master-dead things till a man put his hand to them and gave them purpose.
“Boy, we have business today. Ripley first, another place later. You fed?”
Sam swallowed and nodded.
“Right then. Let’s be off.”
Mr. Gaskin was much impressed by the carriage, and Harriet’s first thought as Slater guided it into the driveway was that she was very glad she had had Crowther’s counsel when finding a place for James to recover. It was not that the house in Kennington Lane was particularly unpleasant; Harriet knew enough from accounts published that some institutions where those whose wits were troubled found themselves were hells almost beyond imagining. Mr. Gaskin’s establishment was a pleasant villa, not unlike Dr. Trevelyan’s home and place of business, but there was an air of neglect here that made its atmosphere very different to the neatness and calm good order in Highgate. The garden borders were obviously only occasionally tended; the floors in the public areas of the house were swept badly, and the woodwork on the sash; windows at the front of the building had grown rotten and not been replaced. Harriet wondered if the friends and relatives of those confined here visited a great deal. She imagined not. It was a place where people were forgotten, and only thought of, briefly, when the bills for their accommodation and care arrived on some sunny breakfast, then were forgotten for another quarter.
The air of general neglect spread to Mr. Gaskin himself. He was a short man, and very broad. His coat was a little dirty, his linen gray, and his wig oddly yellow in places. He resembled nothing so much as a bundle of clothing done up for the laundress to take away and beat back to a civilized appearance. When he smiled, Harriet’s eye was drawn to a loose wooden tooth set in the front of his mouth and looking as unsound as his windowframes. There was nothing to disgust immediately in his manners, but his breath stank.
He bowed low as Crowther presented himself, Harriet and Lady Susan. Harriet watched her young friend steel herself as Gaskin bent over her hand on the weedy gravel of the driveway, and was proud of her.
“Lady Susan! A delight! An honor to have the scion of the noble house of the Earls of Sussex in our establishment.”
Crowther explained calmly to Gaskin that they wished to see Mr. Leacroft and ask about his other visitors. He withdrew a folded sheet from his pocket.
“Was this the man who visited first?” he asked.
Mr. Gaskin took the paper and squinted at it, holding it at various distances from his slightly yellow eyes and cooing: “Oh yes indeed! To the life! What a fine hand!” He bent his almost spherical body toward Susan. “Is this perhaps the work of my lady? I sense a certain feminine grace in it.”
Susan edged a little closer to Harriet. “I cannot draw. Jonathan can, but I cannot.”
“Lady Susan is a musician,” Harriet said. “We should like to introduce her to Mr. Leacroft.” It was not until the words were in the air that Harriet wondered about the wisdom of bringing the child to a place such as this, to meet a man of uncertain temperament; to involve the ward of her host in such an investigation as this. Still, it was done now and Mr. Gaskin was, with a variety of speeches to which Harriet did not closely attend, leading them toward a room in the back of the house.
The general grime seemed to thicken as they found their way. On the walls of the corridor hung a number of inexpert watercolors. The artist had been productive, but his or her works had been carelessly treated. The frames were cheap and ill-fitting, and several had slipped to show the torn edges of the sketchbook from which the drawings had been taken.
Gaskin saw Harriet looking at them and commented, “The works of one of our former guests, the daughter of a churchman whose habits of piety became rather hysteric when she reached thirty and found herself still unmarried. Such things can twist the delicate constitution of a female.” He shook his head very sadly. “She is returned to her family now, however. Her father was widowed and she keeps house for him. One of our successes.”
“Have you many?” Crowther asked, peering at a rather fantastical landscape of ruined towers and distant mountains.
Gaskin lifted his eyebrows and nodded sagely with a satisfied smile. “Indeed, indeed. Mostly we offer care to those not fit for the wider world, and give what comfort we can before their enfeebled constitutions fail, but oftentimes people leave us ready to rejoin their families in safety and health. Though I do not know what prospects I hold out for poor Theophilius. He is sustained here by a legacy of his father’s. That wise gentleman arranged for the interest to be paid directly to this house quarterly after his death, which melancholy event occurred soon after his son’s removal here. It is nearly sufficient to cover dear Theo’s care. The rest of our usual fees I waive.” He turned and forced his smile on Harriet and Susan. “I am a fool to myself perhaps, but one must be charitable.”
Crowther sighed rather audibly and said, “What is the state of Mr. Leacroft?”
Gaskin stroked his chin and drew his brows together. “He is melancholic, sir. With some hysteric symptoms. At times he will laugh and sing, and try to teach his nurses and fellow patients to do the same and remain without sleep for a week, playing at his harpsichord and scribbling notes on any piece of paper he can find. Then he will spend a month barely able to raise his head. It is all we can do at such times to persuade him to take nourishment.”
“What do you do with the music he writes, sir?” Susan asked softly.
“We use it to light the fires, Lady Susan.” Harriet felt Susan stiffen at her side, but she made no further comment. “But how interesting that you ask. The young gentleman in the picture asked the very same thing.”
“Indeed?” Harriet said. “And what did the other gentleman who visited ask you, sir?”
Mr. Gaskin put his nose in the air. “Hmph. That gentleman. . I did not take to him, madam. I confess I did not. He asked nothing, and told me no more than his name.” He tilted again toward Susan. “I sensed no breeding in him,” he added, and winked.
Both Harriet and Crowther were drawing breath to ask something further when they heard a long keening wail from the upper story. Lady Susan started and reached for Harriet’s hand. Mr. Gaskin merely looked annoyed.