Charlie thinks about it. “Nine?”

Renfrew smiles. It’s a proud smile and sits strangely on his self-denying face. For a moment the smile puzzles Charlie. Then he understands.

“She does not smoke.”

“Quite.” There is, to Renfrew, something of the glow that he had after London. “They say it is impossible to achieve self-mastery before the age of fourteen or fifteen, and even then imperfectly. But the girl is eight and has not visibly smoked in more than six months. You see, I have a pedagogic system.”

“The harness?”

“Is a small if important part of it, yes. An invention of mine as a matter of fact, modelled on something I saw during my travels. In Italy. Initially, I used it to correct her posture. But it proved more useful in correcting the soul. The wheel contracts the harness, you see, albeit very slightly. It causes a modicum of pain. Over time, she has learned to use it herself, warning her body against temptation. It will revolutionise child-rearing before too long. Assuming the government changes and permits the introduction of such innovations.”

Renfrew studies Charlie’s reaction to his explanation with detached amusement.

“There is no need to pity Eleanor, Mr. Cooper. She is quite used to the contraption. And with the progress she has made in the past two years, she is now allowed to take it off at night. Though she chooses not to, much of the time.”

He rises, walks Charlie over to the armchairs by the window, and pours out two glasses of water from a simple earthenware jug.

“But enough of this. It’s time you reveal your great mystery. Here you come to me late one evening a week after you have disappeared. Dirty as a sparrow. And looking, if you will excuse the phrase, rather shifty. What happened to you? And why are you here?”

ф

Charlie tells him the easy parts first: how they were attacked, their coachman killed and Thomas shot; how they ran away through the woods and were hidden by “good people.” He does not explain why they did not contact anyone after the attack; nor does he mention the wild woman who helped them staunch the bleeding; nor yet the miners and the week they spent hidden in the mine. Charlie grows even more evasive when Renfrew asks him about his time at the Naylors’ and inquires particularly after the baron’s health. His skin feels itchy where he scrubbed it with Renfrew’s soap and he feels oddly naked, sitting under the bright glare of the gas lamp, without the protective covering of coal dust. When Renfrew presses him for further details in his calm, systematic manner, Charlie pushes forward in his chair and looks him square in the eye.

“There is much I cannot tell you, Master Renfrew. I promised I would not.”

His teacher narrows his eyes, hesitates, purses his lips. “Then why are you here, Mr. Cooper?”