Pamela took the only other seat in the sitting room, and one-handed began to unbutton her bodice. The child waved tiny fists, while two older siblings played some game involving pebbles on the threadbare hearthrug. The only spot of grace about the place was a pair of sketches hanging beside the door, one of Pamela, one of the two older children.

Jack had done both and had likely completed each one in less than five minutes.

“Who knows what Jack and them get up to?” Pamela asked, putting the child to her breast. “They have the sense not to gabble about it. Jack has been looking like a clerk lately, a proper secretary. He takes honest work sometimes, but then his reputation catches up with him.”

“Or his criminal tendencies do.”

Pamela stroked the baby’s downy crown. Another redhead, from the looks of him. “Easy for you to judge, Ellie. You were lucky. Jack works hard, and he’d work honest all the time if he could. You’re not to tell him I said that.”

The little apartment smelled of boiled cabbage and bacon, the signature scents of Ellie’s later childhood.

“Do you hear anything from York?” Ellie asked.

“Had a note last week. It’s on the mantel.”

“You had a note and you didn’t tell me?”

Pamela wrapped the infant more closely in his blanket, which had been a gift from Ellie to Pamela’s firstborn.

“Slipped what’s left of my mind. You try having three babies in six years. Makes ya fair daft, it does.”

Pamela could affect the speech of a Mayfair debutante when she chose to, but here at home, the broad vowels of Yorkshire shone through.

“I wish they’d write to me,” Ellie said, taking down a single folded sheet of foolscap. Grandmama crossed her letters to save on postage, but she still had the handwriting of a lady. Ellie carried the note to the window, where grimy glass let in weak sunshine.

“The usual,” Ellie murmured. “Grandpapa dislikes the cold, Grandmama’s knees bother her. She hopes the winter won’t be as snowy as last.” No hidden messages, no encoded directions for Jack or Pamela or Mick, no word that any of the cousins had been arrested. No bad news, thank the celestial powers. “I wish they’d move south.”

“You wish Jack would move north, and probably me and Clyde as well. Mick has nipped off to Bristol or Antwerp, I forget where.”

Meaning Mick was safely away, if he’d impersonated Mr. Butterfield.

Clyde was a charming Scotsman, which in Ellie’s experience was a redundant term. Charming and unscrupulous were, alas, also often found in close proximity.

“What is Clyde up to these days?”

“Odd jobbing, man of all work,” Pamela said, switching the baby to the second breast. “He drives a cab for any fellow who’s down with an ague, he shovels coal, sweeps crossings…this and that.”