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Back The Ninth Daughter
Chapters (37)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four

“I have warned her,” cried Queenie, shaking her head and pouring Abigail some tea. “She will not listen! Not to me nor to anyone! No good will come of it—”

“Of what, for Heaven’s sake?” She took care to make herself sound profoundly concerned and not ready to grab Queenie by the shoulders and shake the information out of her.

“And the whole thing is simply shredding my nerves, Mrs. Adams! From the moment Mr. Revere shouted to me to come—”

So that’s how they did it—

“There has not been a moment, when I have been free of migraine, or palpitations of the heart, or the sweats . . . Feel my forehead, if you don’t believe me, Mrs. Adams! Last night I could not get a wink of sleep, not one single wink, and what it’s done to my digestion I daren’t think! My husband was the same way, all nerves, poor soul . . . Of course I was stronger then—”

“You have always inspired me with your strength, Mrs. Queensboro,” affirmed Abigail desperately, knowing Mrs. Tillet was not a woman to linger in the marketplace.

“No more.” Queenie shook her head, and raised a sigh so piteous and profound that—as Shakespeare had said—it seemed to shatter all her considerable bulk. “No more. Not since his death, taken as he was in the flower of his prime . . . I have never been the same, you know . . .”

“What is it that she’s done?” asked Abigail, throwing caution to the winds. “Surely she isn’t making you, on top of all else that you have to do to run this household, sew those wretched shirts that she charges the customers seven shillings for?”

And she cast a meaningful eye toward the basket.

“Alas, if it were only that!” Queenie pressed a hand to her eyes. “Even with my migraines, that I get from doing close work—and even the smallest effort at it will set me off for days—”

Heavy footfalls shook the parlor floorboards. Had she not known the yard gate was locked, Abigail would have made a smiling excuse and taken her leave at that point, but she knew she was cornered. She turned toward the parlor door with an expression of pleasure. “Why, Mrs. Tillet—”

“Mrs. Adams.” The linendraper’s wife filled the doorway like the Minotaur emerging from its cave. “To what do we owe this visit?”

“I’m terribly sorry to intrude, m’am, but I was in the neighborhood and Mr. Adams had asked me, about a volume of Tacitus he had lent to Mrs. Malvern some weeks ago. It was not among the things you so kindly sent; I had wondered if by chance it had been mistakenly set aside?”