A Scandal in Battersea Read online

  If the servants were astonished to find such a young child attending a dinner with her elders, they were well trained enough not to show it. The one serving her, however, very quietly advised her on things she might or might not like, and confined her drink options to water with just a little wine in it for flavor, and light cider. Suki listened to him gravely, generally accepted his suggestions, and then listened intently to the conversation going on about her.

  Sarah had been dubious about whether Suki would remain interested and alert through such a long dinner, but she comported herself well, and was rewarded with her favorite dessert, Eton mess, at the end. Not the usual dessert for a formal dinner, but the smile on Suki’s face put an answering smile on Lord Alderscroft’s. It certainly would have been a relief to the kitchen staff to produce something this simple, rather than the usual dinner-party dessert. “Eton mess” was a mixture of whipped cream, broken meringues, and strawberries. In this case, strawberries being out of season, it had been made with strawberry preserve.

  When the last dessert dishes had been taken away, leaving them with fruit, cheese, nuts, and wine, the servants departed. “Now,” said his Lordship, “We can speak freely. I have a bit of a task I have often given John and Mary, ladies. I’d like to ask you to join them. When things are quiet, I send them to make visits to asylums for mentally afflicted.”

  Nan saw where that was going before Sarah did. “Oh! Because an inmate of such a place might actually be seeing things—like Elementals—and not be the victim of lunacy!”

  “Exactly. And up until now, I haven’t had anyone who could determine whether any of these poor creatures was the victim of his or her psychical gift, rather than insanity. Memsa’b and Sahib Harton have been called upon in the occasion that there was a strong likelihood of such a thing, but no one has been looking for it routinely. I should greatly appreciate it if you would, accompanying John, or perhaps John and Mary, as a party.” His Lordship took a sip of his wine. “Do you think that would be possible?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Sarah said, after a moment of thought. “It will probably be harder for Nan than me, of course, to tell if something of interest to us is going on—it will be immediately obvious to me if there are spirits plaguing someone. But if someone is unable to close out the thoughts of others and that is what is wrong with them . . . that might be harder to spot.”

  “I’ll think of something,” Nan declared, who already had a rather good idea of what she could do. “But what do we do if we find such a person?”

  “Let me know immediately, and I will take steps,” Alderscroft declared. He smiled thinly. “It has occurred to me that if said persons could be induced to place their talents at the disposal of the Crown. . . .”

  Nan nodded. “You would probably have more luck in recruiting those who are full of gratitude on account of having been saved from a life in a lunatic asylum than those whose circumstances were more fortunate,” she said dryly.

  Sarah looked a little shocked at her cynicism, but his Lordship—and John Watson—both nodded. “I won’t pretend that doesn’t enter into our calculations,” said John. “Because it certainly does. I’d like to be able to claim it is easy to persuade the more lofty members of the White Lodge to undertake unglamorous, dirty, or . . . ‘common’ tasks for the love of Queen and Country, but—” He shrugged. “And there isn’t even a commission and a fine uniform to go with the service. I’m fortunate that during my tenure I’ve been able to bring in members who do not mind getting their boots and hands dirty, and it has been in no small part because of such rescues.”

  “I see no reason why we shouldn’t,” Nan agreed. “If nothing else, rescuing someone from one of those places that doesn’t belong there is surely a task on the side of the angels.”

  At this point, Suki tried in vain to smother a yawn. “Beg pardon,” she said, a little shamefaced.

  “Not at all, Suki,” Lord Alderscroft said with a smile. “It’s definitely time for us to call an end to our evening. I confess I have an engagement I should be getting ready for. It is just that it will not be nearly as enjoyable as this afternoon was, and I have been putting it off.” He rang for the butler, who appeared as quickly as Aladdin’s Djinni had.

  “The coach is already waiting, my Lord,” the butler said, before Lord Alderscroft could say anything. “By the time your guests are ready to leave, it will be standing at the door.”

  “Thank you, Graves,” Alderscroft said. “Very well done. Ladies? John?”

  And indeed, within a very little time, they were all packed back into the carriage with the snow coming down out of the darkness and hot bricks at their feet. At this unfashionable hour—when most people in this neighborhood were beginning their dinners—the street was very nearly deserted.

  There was a rapping at the little door in the ceiling of the carriage used to communicate with the coachman, and that worthy peeked down at them. “Beg pardon, ladies, sir—m’lord give me th’ usual load of blankets an’ ’taties for a night like this un—hev you got any objection to a stop or two along the way?”

  “Good lord, man, no,” John replied immediately. “In fact, when you spot an urchin, just let me pop out and you toss the goods down. That way you don’t need to get off the box.”

  “Thenkee Doctor, that’d suit right well,” the coachman replied, and closed the hatch. Nan heard him cluck to the horses, and off they went.

  “Blankets? Taties?” she asked.

  “Alderscroft has the cook bake potatoes on nights like this if he’s having the coach go out of the neighborhood, and loads the top behind Brendan with blankets and a full basket. If Brendan sees a child or a woman out begging or trying to sell something in this weather, he’s got orders to give out a hot potato and a blanket each,” Mary Watson said warmly. “Perhaps it’s a small thing—”

  “But it might be the difference between keeping life in the body and freezing to death!” Sarah exclaimed.

  “At the very least, it’s the difference between going to bed hungry and cold, and going to bed warmer and with a full belly,” Nan agreed, thinking that there had been many nights in her past where she would have greeted the gift of a hot potato and a blanket as if they were being granted by a ministering angel.

  The coach made at least four stops to distribute comfort before they reached Nan and Sarah’s lodgings. Twice it was for children, one trying to sell paper flowers, another a little match girl. Both those times, John came back with all they’d had to sell, as well. Once it was for a woman begging with two small children. Once it wasn’t for a woman at all, but for a man, dressed in an old, worn Army uniform; he was particularly noteworthy for being out in the snow with a wooden leg and a crutch. That time when John got back into the coach, Mary gave him an inquiring look.

  “Africa,” John said shortly. “He’s a pukka soldier, all right, not some faker. I gave him the address of someone that can put him on to a job. If he stays sober, this should be his last night of begging in the streets.”

  The coachman let Nan, Sarah and Suki down first, in their unfashionable, working-class neighborhood. Their landlady Mrs. Horace had probably just finished her own dinner and settled down to some mending or knitting before going to a virtuously early bed. The snow was calf-deep in front of their door, and to save Suki’s precious boots, John Watson bravely carried her the few steps to the doorway, setting her down just inside, and was rewarded with a kiss. Nan and Sarah simply held their skirts up and waded through it, stamping their feet to clean them on the step before going inside.

  “You are too good to us, John Watson,” Sarah declared. The Doctor chuckled, and shooed them inside, turning to plow his way back to the carriage. They were not loath to follow his direction.

  As Nan had more than half expected, Mrs. Horace popped her head out of her own door as they closed the outer one. “Well, you’re in good time! How was the Panto?”

>   “Wunnerful!” Suki exclaimed, and looked ready to tell their landlady all about it right there on the spot.

  But Mrs. Horace smiled with approval and forestalled her. “Then you can tell me all about it, ducks, while we make gingerbread and paper chains to decorate the Christmas trees with tomorrow.”

  Suki squealed with glee, and jumped a little. “I will!” she promised, and ran up the stairs.

  “You spoil her,” Nan said, mildly, as Sarah trotted up to unlock the door to their flat.

  “She’s easy to spoil, and it doesn’t seem to do her any harm,” their landlady replied fondly. “Good night to you, Miss Nan.”

  “Pleasant dreams to you, Mrs. Horace,” Nan answered, and followed Sarah.

  Sarah had already turned up the lights, poked up the fire, and was helping Suki out of her finery and into her nightdress, so Nan went to the birds’ room to check on them.

  In summer, the birds either slept on the headboards of Nan and Sarah’s beds or on their perches, but in winter they shared a cage that had had the door taken off. It was shrouded in a nice, thick blanket, and had a hot brick wrapped in old flannel at the bottom of it. The raven Neville would have been fine without such a precaution, but with Grey being from Africa, Sarah and Nan preferred to take every precaution they could think of to keep her warm.

  Neville seemed to feel the same, since Nan found them huddled together with Neville’s wing over Grey’s back.

  They looked up at her footstep, and blinked sleepily at her. She checked the temperature of the brick with her hand, and decided to exchange it for the one on the hearth.

  “Good fun,” Grey said.

  “Yes, it was a great deal of fun,” Nan agreed. “I wish you could have come with us.”

  “Rrrr. Ginger nuts,” suggested Neville.

  “Providentially, Mrs. Horace has decided that tomorrow is going to be a baking day, so I think that can be arranged,” Nan chuckled, putting the hot, newly wrapped brick in the bottom of the cage. “Good night, my loves.”

  She went to her own room and came out in a comfortable flannel wrapper over her own nightdress to find Sarah, who had done the same, waiting with chamomile tea. “Suki is already asleep,” she said, handing Nan a cup and propping her feet up at the fire. “I’m surprised; I would have thought she’d be awake half the night.”

  “A very full stomach plus a nice warm bed probably did the trick,” Nan observed. “And I would be feeling the same, were it not for Lord A’s hints tonight.”

  Sarah sighed. “Christmas Eve and the dark of the moon coming together . . . he’s right. We should be on our guard at this time of year. Or at least, John and Mary should. I don’t know that our talents are going to be of any use when it is arcane perils that are most likely to walk the earth.”

  “Oh? I thought the Eve was when spirits crossed, too,” Nan observed, sipping her tea. “That is quite firmly in your area of expertise.”

  “But moon-dark has absolutely no effect on that, at least not that I have ever seen.” Sarah had set aside her empty teacup and toyed with the end of her golden braid like a cat with a bit of yarn. “It seems such a pity to spoil Christmas with having to worry about . . . that.”

  Nan thought about that for a moment. “Well,” she observed. “There’s nothing at all we can do to prevent trouble, true?”

  “As far as I know, true,” Sarah agreed.

  “So whether we worry about it, or don’t think about it and enjoy the holiday, trouble will happen, or not, regardless. True?”

  “Also true.” Sarah smiled at her friend. “I see where you are taking this. Yes, you’re right. There is no point in worrying about it, as long as we are prepared for trouble to come.”

  “Which we always are,” Nan pointed out triumphantly, and finished her tea. “So there is no point in troubling ourselves about what might happen. Meanwhile I am going to bed now, and I plan to enjoy the holiday to its fullest from now until Boxing Day.”

  “I think I shall read for a bit by the fire,” Sarah replied. “It’s too cold to read in bed.”

  “There, I agree with you.” She gathered up the cups and put them on the tray outside their door for Mrs. Horace to collect in the morning. By the time she turned around, Sarah was already deeply engrossed in her book, feet to the fire. Chuckling, she sought out her bed, very grateful for the flannel-wrapped brick Mrs. Horace had slipped into it. It still had enough heat in it that she moved it down to the foot of the bed to warm her toes. She was asleep in moments, and dreaming she was feasting on Eton mess with a gaggle of Arab ballet dancers.

  Sarah waited until she was sure that Nan was asleep and exchanged her book for another. Not a romantic adventure, this one was a volume from Memsa’b’s library—one of the very rare books on spirits and hauntings. Not that books about spirits and hauntings were rare—if anything, there were rather too many of them available in the shops. It was accurate books that were a rarity.

  This one, in particular, focused solely on vengeful or inimical spirits. She had believed that Puck’s talisman would protect her against such things. But thanks to this book . . . she had come to realize it might not.

  So far all the nasty spirits she had encountered had been those of evil but perfectly ordinary people. The talisman that Puck had given her as a child had been more than adequate protection against them, walling them off from her so that they could do her no harm. But within the pages of this book, she had found things that suggested that she had merely been lucky thus far, in that she had never encountered the vengeful spirit of someone who, in life, had been a magician, or worse, a Master. Such a spirit would not only have the knowledge of magic it had wielded in life, it would have access to whatever power was available in the spirit realm.

  Tonight’s discussion of Christmas Eve had brought her the sudden realization that if ever such a spirit was to strike, it would be then. She had not wanted to spoil Nan’s evening, in no small part because there was nothing whatsoever Nan could actually do against such a creature, so she had kept her misgivings to herself. But as soon as Nan had gone to bed, she plunged back into the pages of the book, looking for answers.

  Unfortunately, she found none, and closed the book wearing a frown of discontent. Finally, she stared into the dying fire, and sighed. I’ll just have to see if John and Mary know something, or if they fail me, Lord Alderscroft.

  But Nan was right about one thing. There really was nothing she could do about it, if there happened to be such a creature waiting for its moment to emerge from the spirit realm. She didn’t know where it could manifest, nor what form it would take. She and the Watsons had already put every protection they could think of on their flat, the Watsons’, and Holmes’. And Lord Alderscroft, of course, had so much magic layered on his various homes that to the inner eye they looked like impregnable fortresses. There was nothing more she could do, so she might as well stop fretting and enjoy the season.

  Easier said than done, she sighed, as she put the book away on a shelf. No harm in rereading it later, after all. She might spot something she had missed if she came at it with fresh eyes.

  She went to bed, grateful that Mrs. Horace had stowed a hot brick wrapped in flannel in it, and even more grateful for the featherbed and down comforter. She was sure she would have nightmares anyway, but instead, she found herself dreaming of Aladdin, who looked just like Puck, producing a series of amusing spirits out of a lamp.

  2

  ALEXANDRE Harcourt despised the Christmas season.

  It was not merely that everyone around him—even occultists, artists and writers who should have been immune to such childish nonsense—became positively giddy in the presence of decorations, carols, and Christmas sweets. It was not just that everyone around him suddenly became mawkishly and sentimentally attached to their families, even when during the rest of the year they could barely stand to be in the same building.
r />   It was that the season occasioned not just idiotic merriment, but upsets in everything. Christmas balls had an air of . . . desperation. Anxious mamas and equally anxious daughters were eying the deadline of New Year’s Eve, still with no engagements announced, and were lowering their expectations and upping the pressure on any young man they considered a remotely acceptable catch. Parties were inclined to include children, at least for part of the festivities, and Alexandre loathed children.

  But worst of all, the entertainments he could usually count on were supplanted by . . . other things.

  Today, for instance. He had intended to spend the afternoon at his favorite music hall, one where the women danced the French Can-Can in the truly French manner, that is to say, sans culottes. He had been looking forward to a pleasant, dissipated afternoon, after which he would think about his dinner and his evening. But he arrived there only to discover the music hall was closed.

  That is, he arrived at the hall to find there was a slouching fellow in an oversized coat and a soft hat standing outside the doors, turning people away. Alexandre ignored him and attempted to push his way in, but the fellow actually put an arm out, preventing him.

  “’All’s closed, guv,” he said, pulling on the brim of his hat deferentially. Alexandre stared at him, stunned. He’d never heard of such a thing—a closed music hall is a music hall that isn’t making any money, after all. The fellow nodded to confirm his statement and elaborated. “’Ole ’all’s ’ired out till midnight,” he stated. “Brother’ood uv ’Aulers an’ Carters Christmas Ball.”

  Alexandre swallowed down rage, but enraged he surely was. How dared some dirty lot close this place for a whole day so they could swill cheap beer and cavort until midnight! “But surely—” he said, “The entertainers—”