“We have to clean them?” I thought of Oliver Twist, and the scene where little Oliver narrowly escapes becoming a climbing boy.
Mrs. Smith blinked slowly, her way of repressing amazement at how little I knew. The institute’s solution to our having no family, friends, or acquaintances—in an England where the gentry all seemed to know each other or be within a few degrees of separation—was to make us orphaned siblings, the children of a Jamaica planter. It was not an ideal biography, but it could explain away a lot, like ignorance about chimneys.
“At your order, miss, I will send Mr. Jencks to find a sweep.” I must have still looked confused, for she added, “At this hour, they are in the streets, crying out their trade.”
“But tell him to get only one who uses brushes. Not one with a boy.”
She blinked. “Brushes?”
“Some have special brushes with long handles that go all the way into the chimney.”
“I’ve not heard of such a thing.”
“Even so, they exist.” I was feeling surer of this. “Make a point of it when you speak with Jencks.” I talked to Jencks, the manservant, as little as possible myself; my dealings with him were always unpleasant. “He doesn’t like me,” I had complained to Liam. “Whenever I ask him to do something, he sneers at me and finds a reason it’s impossible.” Liam had looked skeptical; Jencks was always fawningly polite to him.
I WAS THINKING ABOUT JENCKS, AND ABOUT THE AWKWARD NECESSITY of having servants at all, later in Green Park; a morning walk was another routine we’d established, a time to discuss things without fear of being overheard. That day, though, we hadn’t been talking much, just walking in brisk silence down an alley of plane trees. It was sunny but cold, with a subtle change in the slant of light suggesting autumn. A gust of wind had caught falling leaves and was swirling them in the air above us.
“It’s time I wrote to Henry Austen,” Liam said, apropos of nothing. “Don’t you think?”
I looked at him in amazement. “Uh, yeah.”
It was what I’d been urging him to do almost since we’d arrived in 1815, certainly since we’d taken the house on Hill Street and had a fancy address to write from. Liam had kept putting me off, saying that we needed more research. We’d take long walks in the parks or along fashionable shopping streets, go to art exhibits or to the theater, obsessed with studying how the gentry behaved and carried themselves, the words they used and how they pronounced them.
I empathized, in a way. We had one chance to make a good impression on Henry Austen; failure meant losing our best opportunity to meet his sister. In another way, it was making me crazy: there was no time to lose, and Liam was exasperatingly in charge of this part, just by being male. I could not write to Henry Austen.
“Good, then.” Liam gave me a nod, and only then did it strike me how nervous he must be about this step. Afraid, even.
But there was no time to waste on fear. By mid-October, Jane Austen would be in London with Henry, and events we needed to be involved in would be unfolding; it was like trying to ride a wave, and we were already late.
“It’ll be okay. You can do this,” I told him. I wondered if he actually could.
WE’D JUST GOTTEN BACK IN THE HOUSE WHEN WE HEARD A SCREAM and a crash. Glancing at each other, we followed the sound up the stairs and into the drawing room to its source: a black cloth hanging in front of the hearth, a bare human foot sticking out. Behind the cloth, I found a little boy, motionless and filthy, and knelt down for a closer look. His breathing was rapid and shallow; he stank of soot. I shook his shoulder.
“Can you hear me?”
His eyes opened and looked into mine. The irises were a warm brown, the whites a startling contrast with his soot-blackened face. “Can you hear me?” I asked again. He nodded and tried to move, but I held him still. “Can you feel that?” I squeezed one foot, then the other. “And that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said in a strangled tone, and coughed wetly.
“Can you wiggle your toes for me? What about your fingers?”
He could. I felt his vertebrae through his rags, finding no sign of a spinal injury.
I sat back on my heels and studied him, then pulled the bell cord by the mantel. But Jencks was already in the doorway, looking astounded. “Could we have some tea?”
He smirked. “How can there be hot water, with the chimney sweep here, and no fires?”
“I’m starting to see what you mean about him,” muttered Liam, who had come behind me without my noticing, then went on, louder: “Jencks! Make it porter. Bring us half a pint. If we’ve none, go out for some.”
“Yes, sir.” And he was gone.
The boy had sat up and was rubbing his eyes with his dirty hands.
“Stop that,” I said, my tone sterner than I’d intended. He froze, and I held out my handkerchief. “Here, use this. You don’t want more soot in your eyes. They will just feel worse.”
But he just stared at the cloth. I made my voice even gentler as I went on: “You can get it dirty. I have more. Does your head hurt?”
“Neh.”
“What is your name?”
“Tom.” It was hardly a breath.
I stood up. “I am Miss Ravenswood. Will you come to the kitchen with me, Tom? Perhaps we can wash you off.” I held out my hand, and he surprised me by taking it. When he stood, scattering black dust, he was barely past my waist, and I felt something twist in my heart.
I FOUND MRS. SMITH IN THE STRANGELY COOL KITCHEN, INVENTORYING spices; Grace, polishing silver.
“I asked for a sweep who did not use a climbing boy.” Both women turned shocked glances from Tom to me and back to Tom.
“Miss, I passed on your instructions.”
“You can light the fire. We are not cleaning any more chimneys today.” Tom’s hand transmitted a tiny shudder to mine. “Grace, I will need hot water for a bath.”
Her eyes were still on Tom. “I’ll bring the tub up to your room?”
A bath was a production, involving a theoretically portable copper tub and many buckets of hot water. “No, leave it in the laundry. It is for Tom here. I think he will feel better once he has a wash and something to eat.”
A sound made us turn to see a man who was evidently the senior chimney sweep. Small and wiry, in a fustian suit made for someone larger, he could have been between twenty and sixty; only in comparison to his employee did he look clean.
“What’s this?” he growled as his gaze found Tom. He brushed past Liam, stepped into the kitchen, and lunged for the boy, who dodged behind me with a cry. “What’s this, now?” As he drew closer, I raised a hand to stop him.
“Here is the problem,” I began. Everyone’s eyes were on me, and I wasn’t sure what to say. Jencks appeared in the doorway next to Liam, tankard in hand, frown on his face. “Your boy has had a fall, Mr.—What is your name?”
“Brown,” he rasped.