Page 10 of A Silence in Belgrave Square (Below Stairs #8)

The hansom slowed as it rolled along Cheapside.

The busy road was as crowded as ever, a large knot of people gathering halfway along to observe Mr.Bennett’s clock perched above his watch shop.

On the hour, the ancient gods of Gog and Magog would raise hammers and strike and restrike a bell, sounding out the time.

This entertaining spectacle drew hordes despite police efforts to limit their numbers.

Nothing could keep Londoners from their pleasures.

Clover Lane was west of the clock, so the hansom could pull to the side of the street relatively unencumbered to let me alight.

I invited James to join me, as Grace and Joanna and family adored James, but he declined.

“Too many things to do,” he said as he assisted me down. “I’m a working gent now, Mrs.Holloway.”

I was happy James was earning his bread, though I hoped he could someday find a more lucrative trade.

I forestalled him leaping back into the cab. “Before you rush away, James, will you try to find Mr.Grimes for me? I’d like to speak to him.”

Zachariah Grimes, who sometimes helped Daniel, unofficially, in his cases, looked like the most dangerous bone breaker one could meet, but he had a warm heart, and he was very fond of Daniel. I wished to confer with him on a thing or two.

Asking anyone to scour the masses in London for one man would be daunting for any other person, but James didn’t flinch.

“Right you are, Mrs.H. I’ll send him your way.” James sketched me a salute and dove back into the hansom, which turned swiftly and rolled back toward St. Paul’s.

I left the crush of Cheapside for the quiet of Clover Lane and the small house near its end.

Grace greeted me with enthusiasm that hadn’t dimmed over the years. My heart ached as I held her in the vestibule of Joanna’s cozy home.

My dream of running a tea shop while Grace played in the back room would soon be beyond reach if she kept growing up. I might be in the tea shop, but she’d be gone, off in her own life, with a family of her own. Perhaps she’d sometimes spare a thought or two for her old mum.

Until then, I intended to extract as much pleasure from our visits as I could.

Grace gushed over the little trinket box I’d brought her, and we took some time to find the best place to display it in the bedchamber she shared with Jane, Joanna’s oldest daughter. Grace thanked me as profusely as if I’d brought her a string of diamonds.

“Where shall we go today, Mum?” Grace asked me when we went back downstairs to prepare for our walk.

“It is such a fine day,” I said. “Hyde Park?”

There were closer green areas, like Lincoln’s Inn Fields or the Victoria Embankment, with its gardens along the Thames.

When I’d been a babe in arms, the Thames had been foul, my mother had told me, with all means of offal and filth floating in it, so that one could not go near its sickening stench.

A new brick-lined sewage system, which apparently was a wonder of the world, had drained the horrors from our river. The embankments on either side of the Thames now both prevented flooding and provided a fine place to walk on a spring day.

Grace looked puzzled with my choice of Hyde Park—we usually did not go so far on my half days, but then she smiled. She suspected what I was up to.

Joanna insisted on helping Grace into her coat, as attentive as any mother, and she sent us off with a wave and a smile.

“I am lucky to have such a friend,” I said as we walked back to Cheapside so I could seek yet another hansom.

“Aunt Joanna is lovely,” Grace said. “I do love her. I hope you don’t mind.”

I regarded her in surprise. “Why on earth should I mind?”

I supposed I ought to be jealous of Joanna for being able to spend more time with my daughter than I could. I was envious, because I wanted to be the one to tuck Grace into bed and kiss her good night. But Joanna, my dearest friend in life, would never, ever think to usurp my place.

At one time, she and Sam had offered to adopt Grace, the too-good people believing they’d do me a favor, and I’d wept for days over such an agonizing choice. In the end, I’d refused, and Joanna had understood exactly why.

I did not have the skill to simply summon a cab as James did, so we walked through St. Paul’s Churchyard to a hansom stand in Ludgate Hill.

The cab we embarked took us along Fleet Street and then to the Strand, which was as thronged as Cheapside.

The cabbie turned through the West End’s theater district, and soon we emerged into Piccadilly and Mayfair.

I’d swept as many coins as I could into my purse today, in anticipation of this journey, so I had no trouble paying over the shillings when we descended at Hyde Park Corner.

We chose a path that reached out to entice us into wide swaths of green. Hyde Park was open to anyone in London, and a cook and her daughter could stroll there with impunity, though mostly we saw ladies with parasols and fine feathered hats or nannies pushing children in their tiny carriages.

I kept busy Knightsbridge in our sights, and Grace, an intelligent girl, pointed toward it. “What’s on the other side of that road, Mum? Should we go look at the pretty houses there?”

I paused and wrinkled my forehead as though I hadn’t considered this every day since Daniel had locked himself into Viscount Peyton’s home in Belgrave Square. “I suppose we could,” I said, trying to sound doubtful. “It isn’t far, is it?”

We returned to Knightsbridge, waited for a clearing in traffic, then plunged across the road, hand in hand, sealing our fate.