"You'll lie to the nuns?" Matt teased. "And you such a God-fearing man."
"If it's good enough for their priest to lie on a police report, then it's good enough for me." He crossed his arms and gave an emphatic humph.
"Willie isn't here and she also has an American accent," I said. "They'll know she's associated with us."
"I'll go." Miss Glass swanned into the room, her fierce mood of earlier nowhere in evidence. "They don't know me, and I'm not Catholic, so it's all right if I need to tell a falsehood to save your life, Matthew."
"I don't know," Matt hedged. "It'll require steely nerves."
"I am quite capable, thank you. Now, off to your room with you. You look terrible."
He kissed her cheek as he passed. "Thank you, Aunt. I'm glad you're on my side in this."
"I am on your side in all things."
His gaze flicked to me and his lips flattened before he strode out. Miss Glass looked as if she would upbraid me, as if Matt's disinterest in discussing marriage to suitable ladies was my fault. I suppose it was, in a way.
I quickly excused myself and left the room before she decided to speak.
* * *
Miss Glass performed admirably and returned to the carriage with a name and address for the former nun known as Sister Francesca. We drove her back to Park Street and then continued on to Bermondsey across the river. I smelled the tanning and leather factories before I saw them. Thick black smoke spewed from their chimneys, making the sky darker and grittier here than Mayfair. The faces we passed were just as dark and gritty with dirt and soot. It must be impossible to keep clothing, houses and skin clean, and I felt a pang of sympathy for housewives and their endless laundering. Imagine having to work all day in one of those factories then come home and face the cleaning. I wouldn't blame them for not bothering.
Bermondsey didn't look like a kind place for a friendless former nun who suddenly had to make her own way in the world. At least she was used to hard work and meager living, but the putrid smell smothering the streets would take time to get used to.
According to the convent, Miss Abigail Pilcher rented a room in a two up, two down row house on Spa Road. As with the rest of the houses lining the street, it was simple, functional and in need of repair. Two children sat on the stoop. Their hair resembled abandoned nests and their feet were bare. They stopped drawing in the mud with their fingers to watch our arrival through wary eyes.
"Does Miss Abigail Pilcher still live here?" Matt asked them.
The boy shook his head.
"Damn it," Matt muttered.
The children didn't so much as blink at his foul language.
"Is your mother home?" I asked.
Both shook their heads.
"Are there any adults here now?"
The door behind them opened and a woman with a bent back and whiskery chin peered out. "Get away from my grandchildren," she snapped.
"We don't want your grandchildren." Matt plucked a coin out of his pocket. "My name is Matthew Glass and this is Miss Steele. May we speak with you?"
She palmed the coin but did not invite us in or offer her name. "Are you lost?"
"We're looking for Miss Abigail Pilcher. She used to live in this building twenty-seven years ago."
The woman's eyes screwed up and she leaned forward to study Matt's face. "Are you that priest?"
"Which priest?"
"The one what used to visit her."
"I'm not a priest, merely a relative searching for her. My parents lost contact with Cousin Abigail when she entered the convent. They didn't agree with her choice, you see, being C of E themselves."
"Rightly so too. I never did trust Micks, and after I learned she used to be a nun, well, I trusted 'em even less. That's what happens when you pick the wrong side."
Matt held up his hands for her to slow down. "What do you mean, that's what happens? Did something terrible happen to Abigail? Is she dead?"
"Could be, by now. She moved on about ten years ago, when her son got himself a supervisor's job at a factory."
"She has an adult son?" I asked, hope surging. Why hadn't we considered that she had taken Phineas and passed him off as her own? "How old would he be now?"
The woman's mouth twisted this way and that. "Twenty-seven, if you say that's how long ago she moved in. She was close to her time when she came here."
My heart sank. "She was pregnant? The baby wasn't already a few weeks old?"
"She had her babe two or three months later." She chuckled a brittle laugh, revealing more gum than teeth. "Question is, how does a nun get in the family way?"
Chapter 4
"Abigail was a good way along when them other nuns got rid of her," the old neighbor said with a wicked flash in her eyes. She seemed delighted to impart such salacious gossip to us. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. Bad things happen when you choose the wrong side. A wiser girl wouldn't have chosen to be a Mick nun; she'd have picked C of E. Them dirty Micks ain't a good lot, that's what I always say. Look what happened to her there."
How did one become pregnant in a convent? Not that it mattered to us. Abigail's predicament seemed to have nothing to do with Phineas's disappearance. What did matter was where she could be found now. We still needed to talk to her.
Matt asked the crone but she merely shrugged. "Well I don't know, do I? She left here 'bout ten years ago, when her son got a good job."
"At a factory," Matt reiterated.
"Aye, making hats. Abigail used to do finishing work in her garret to pay the rent and buy enough food for the two of 'em. She were a good worker, at it day and night, putting silk covers and bindings on fine top hats. The pay weren't good but she got by. Real fast, she was, and they gave her plenty to do. More than me and my daughter, and there were two of us. Don't know how she got through her lot and slept. The gov'ner at the factory liked her so much he gave her son a job working the machines when he were still a boy. Few years later, they made him supervisor and he and Abigail moved out, lucky buggers. They just up and left without a goodbye. Dirty Micks never did belong here." She spat into the mud. "Abigail thought she were better than us, even though we're good Christian folk too." She squinted at Matt and once again eyed him up and down. "You her cousin, eh? Well, well."
Matt took out another coin. "What's the name of the factory where the son works?"
She licked flaky lips and didn't take her gaze off the money. "Christy's Hats in Bermondsey Street."