Mr. Anthony had used heavy chains to keep the doors shut, and Jack was fiddling to get them undone when he heard a voice on the other side of the door. “Jack? Jack Currer? It is you, ain’t it? Oh please, be Jacks.”
He unlatched the door and opened it to find himself standing face-to-face with Jeanette, his old spy. They hadn’t worked together but the once since she got a job as a maid at Almont House—only three months had passed since he last saw her, but she looked as if she’d aged years. She wore her maid’s uniform, but it was wrinkled and creased, as if she had slept in it. Her hair was stringy under her bonnet, and her skin was sallow and pale. The shadows beneath her hollowed eyes were almost black. She clutched her stomach. “There’s no one I can talk to. If I tell the housekeeper at work, I’ll be canned for certain, and I can’t afford a doctor. You was always good to me, Jacks. Some of the boys told me you was here, and I—” She clutched at her stomach again, and Jack understood—or thought he did.
“Come on, then,” Jack said, ushering her through the front door and closing it behind her. She could use the W.C. to freshen up, and in the meantime he would see if he could scrounge up some biscuits.
* * *
HAZEL WAS WEARING SPECTACLES WHEN SHE opened the dungeon door and found Jack standing there next to a young woman who was scowling and clutching her stomach.
“You wear spectacles?” Jack blurted to Hazel before he managed a proper greeting.
“Rarely,” Hazel said, blushing. “When I have been up late. And the print is small. And I am studying. Shut up. What seems to be the situation here?” Hazel reached past Jack to comfort the woman he was standing with. She shrank away from Hazel.
“It’s all right, Jeanie, come on now,” Jack said to her, and then to Hazel, “This is Jeanette. I’ve known her for a long time. She’s having some sort of—situation, and neither of us being able to afford a doctor, I figured I’d bring her here. See if you could take a look at her.”
“I’m not going to the hospital!” Jeanette cried. “I’ve been to the poor hospital, and it’s bloody awful. I can’t take the smells again. The moaning!”
“Hush now. Nobody is going to take you anywhere. We can take a look at you right here,” Hazel said.
Mollified, Jeanette followed Jack into the dim dungeon laboratory, although her eyes still cast about with nervous suspicion. Hazel cleared the long table of the books and notes she had been studying and lit a fresh candle, noticing that the one she had been using had melted to a nub. “Sit up here,” Hazel said, “and tell me what’s wrong.” The girl looked familiar, but Hazel couldn’t quite place her.
Jeanette complied, and straightened her skirt on her lap. Catching Hazel’s glance at her belly, she said, “I’m not with child. I just couldn’t be. It just ain’t possible. I swear it. Hey! I knows you, don’t I, miss? Jacks, I know her. She’s—she knows Lord Almont, don’t she?”
“He’s my uncle,” Hazel said. The face came back to Hazel: she was the Almonts’ young maid.
Jeanette made an angry scoffing noise and tried to hoist herself off the table. But she got only an inch before the pain caught her again and Jack gently helped her back to sitting. “I can’t be here,” she said. “If they find out I’m here—if they think I’m with child, I won’t be allowed to work no more. Mrs. Poffroy will have me out on the street before I can blink. I know the stories. I know what happens to girls once their reputations is ruined.”
“Jeanette,” Hazel said calmly. “Jeanette, isn’t it? I assure you, I won’t tell a soul that you’re here today. I swear it, on my honor. Besides, the niece of a viscount is hardly supposed to be running an infirmary out of her home’s dungeon, now, is she?”
“Suppose not,” Jeanette mumbled.
“Well, then, the solution is quite simple. You keep my secret, and I shall keep yours.”
Jack smiled at Hazel then, and warmth radiated from her chest to the tips of her fingers.
Hazel straightened her spectacles and withdrew a notebook from her shelves. She licked the tip of her quill. “So, Jeanette: What seems to be the problem, then?”
Jeanette flicked her tongue across her small dry lips and tugged at her skirt. “I haven’t got my monthly. It’s been ages. One month I figured I just lost track of the dates, then two months came, and now three. And I’m getting these ’orrible pains, worse than anything I’ve ever had in my stomach. So bad I can’t work without moaning, and Mrs. Poffroy had to let the kitchen maid put me to bed.”