Page 86 of Dark Tides
“You take it. I won’t need it. I’m not going to die until I see my son again,” Alinor said confidently. “You’ve told them at the milliner’s that you’re leaving?”
The girl nodded. “I told them I’d be away for a quarter. They weren’t happy, but they’ll take me back when I return. Ma thinks I’m going to work as usual.”
“And you have the money for your passage?”
Sarah nodded. “I’ve got enough. It feels wrong not giving it to Ma. And Johnnie’s given me some.”
“You’ve told Johnnie?”
“I can trust him. But, Grandma, maybe don’t tell Ma, for she’ll only tell Livia.”
Alinor nodded. “She tells her everything. I’ll say you went to stay with a friend in the country, for a week. And, at the end of the week, I’ll tell her then. That’ll give you a start, so Livia can’t send a message to warn them.”
The girl frowned. “You think she has people working for her? But doing what?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t want her knowing that you’ve gone to find her out.”
The girl was struck for the first time with the enormity of her task. “Grandma! If I find Uncle Rob, what am I to do?”
“Just tell him what’s happening here,” Alinor advised. “Tell him Livia’s here, and what she’s doing. Tell him she’s got your mother wrapped around her little finger and she’s running us into debt. He’ll know what should be done. Once you find him, he can decide what is best.”
“I don’t have to bring him home?”
Alinor laughed. “A little thing like you? No. He’s a grown man. He must decide what he wants to do. All you have to do is see him. So I know that he is alive. And take this…” She picked up a worn red leather purse from the table. “I don’t know if it will be any use to you. But you should have it.”
“What is it?” Sarah asked, thinking that it could not be more money, though coins chinked inside the red leather.
“Little tokens, tiny old coins that I used to find when I was a girl at Foulmire. Rob would know them at once. If he doubts you come from me, or doubts your word, show them to him.”
The girl said nothing; she thought with pity that her grandmother’s senses must be failing, to send her to the wealthiest city in the world with a purse of clippings to look for a drowned son, as if she could buy him back from the underworld. “And, Grandma, if I don’t find him?” the girl suggested hesitantly. “If I find that it’s true and that he’s drowned?”
“Ah, if he’s dead and buried at sea then bring something back that he owned, if you can,” Alinor said, her face suddenly haggard. “I’ll have it in my coffin when I’m buried so that something of his can be buried on land in Christian ground, so his soul doesn’t wash around the world in dark tides. And if I’ve just been a foolish old woman who can’t bear the truth and makes up a stupid story, then bring back that to me—as hard and true as it is, Sarah. I’d rather have a hard truth than a soft lie. If he’s drowned, then take a boat out to where they say he went down, and throw some flowers on the water and say a prayer for him. Say his name. Tell him that I love him.”
“I will,” she whispered. “If I can do nothing else, I can do that. You can tell Ma and Livia that I’ve gone to honor his grave.” She paused for a moment. “What flowers? Any flowers especially, Grandma?”
“Forget-me-nots.”
Livia, with Carlotta, the nursemaid, trailing unhappily behind with the baby in her arms, walked the length of St. Olave’s Street to London Bridge. She elbowed her way through the teeming crowds on the bridge, snapping over her shoulder that Carlotta should keep up. Porters carrying trays on their heads or sacks on their backs pushed into the two women, wagoners bellowed for people to make way, shopkeepers shouted bargains at them, and beggars plucked at their skirts. Often the press of people was so great that they could make no way at all but just had to stand, crushed in the crowd, and wait for everyone to move on.
“This is unbearable!” Livia exclaimed as Matteo wailed unhappily in Carlotta’s arms; but there was no avoiding the queues of slowly moving people.
Halfway over the bridge the crowd thinned at the disused church; but then the way narrowed again and the women had to push along the drawbridge, and finally spill out onto Thames Street.
“Follow me!” Livia ordered, and led the way for a mile up Thames Street, struggled through the smoke-stained half-ruined City gate, over the Fleet Bridge into Fleet Street, and elbowed her way around the half-built Temple Bar to emerge with a sigh of relief into the paved way of the Strand.
It was a long way to carry a baby, stepping over the filth in the road, ignoring the stares of more fashionable people, avoiding the impertinent poor. Beggars had to be sidestepped, street sellers with everything from eels to posies of flowers and fruit from the country had to be refused. Carlotta was flustered and upset by the time they got to the steps of Avery House and Livia impatiently pulled the huge iron doorbell.
“Why did we not take a boat?” Carlotta hissed. “What do all these people want us to buy?”
“We have no money for a boat.” Livia spat her reply, and then turned a smiling face to the door as Glib silently opened the double-height door to the two of them. “Is Sir James at home?” Livia asked coolly, walking past him to the mirror and taking off her hat, pausing briefly to see the reflection of her perfect face.
“In his study. Am I to show you in?”
“I’ll go in,” Livia said. She nodded to Carlotta to sit on the chair in the hall and rock the fretful baby. “Keep him quiet!” she snapped.
Glib did not warn her that Sir James had a visitor: but when he threw open the door for Livia she saw a stranger in the room. She hesitated on the threshold before stepping forwards with a charming smile. “Forgive me, I thought you were alone. I did not mean to intrude.”
“No, come in, come in. I know this is your time to come for your letters.” Sir James beckoned her in. “Indeed, this is someone who can advise us. I have shown him the statues in the gallery already, my brother-in-law, George Pakenham.”
