The Actress

By Cordelia Frances Biddle

A nineteenth-century Philadelphia heiress must rescue a friend from a criminal underworld in a series that “wonderfully evokes the color and culture of the time” (Publishers Weekly).
 
Becky Grey Taitt is not the sort of woman who would typically infiltrate a gang of counterfeiters, but she is desperate for a powerful judge’s help in preventing her abusive husband from taking custody of her child—and that’ss the price the judge set in exchange for his aid.
 
But the plan goes awry, and now Becky is trapped among criminals and killers. Her only hope is her friend Martha Beale, who, along with her beau, Thomas Kelman, will do everything possible to rescue Becky, in this tale of political machinations, revenge, and murder.
 
“Fresh and believable. Biddle knows her manner and her city, and shows both to great advantage.” —The Plain Dealer
 
“An intricately orchestrated narrative that implicates the Brahmin class and the corruption that comes with their absolute power.” —Publishers Weekly
 
Praise for the Martha Beale Mysteries
 
“The setting is unfolded as vividly as the characters, from the ‘commoners’ working the textile mills to the unseemly criminal types of the upper-crust elite. . . . A fine mix of history and mystery.” —Booklist
 
“A first-rate mystery.” —Julia Spencer-Fleming, New York Times–bestselling author of Hid from Our Eyes
 
“A good read . . . skillfully evokes the elegant society salons and grubby streets of 1842 Philadelphia.” —Philadelphia Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Jan 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504072830

Cordelia Frances Biddle

Cordelia Frances Biddle is the author of the Martha Beale Mystery series. A member of one of Philadelphia’s oldest families, she uses many of her actual ancestors as characters in her historical mysteries. She also cowrote the Nero Blanc Crossword Mystery series with her husband, Steve Zettler, with whom she lives in Philadelphia. Her website is www.cordeliafrancesbiddle.net.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

AT NIGHT

The moon shines down on the Delaware River, a sphere as glistening as a giant silver salver. To some the color and size might seem prophetic, but there are none about at this late hour, and the busy port, despite the hot summer’s night, is still. The cacophony of foreign- and English-speaking voices will remain absent until daybreak when the loading and unloading of the ships recommence and the waves again turn choppy with traffic from skiffs and dories and pinnaces carrying the river pilots south toward the bay and ocean beyond.

So, silence, save for the lapping of the incoming tide as it thrusts itself against wooden hulls and wharf struts, against the embankment that rises in crags along the shoreline or flattens beach-like, waiting to be exposed and then submerged again. Silent, also, save for the lumbering movements of the rats that make the riverbank and piers their home: fat, silky creatures that reign supreme in these hours between midnight and dawn. Their citified brethren are as like to them as coal ponies are to Thoroughbreds.

In the hush, a man makes his way along the embankment. Though he carries a large burden slung over one shoulder, he appears to be dressed not as a laborer but as a gentleman of leisure. The all-encompassing lunar glow could be playing tricks with his appearance, however, making the cloth of his attire seem finer than it is, his boots costlier, the linen at his throat snowier. He wears no tall beaver hat, and his trouser legs are streaked with mud mingled with shattered oyster shells that lend a luminescence to his stride. From his struggling form it looks as if he hasn’t the strength to continue to the water’s edge.

In fact, his stamina is nearly at an end. Stumbling for the final time on one of the shale-flecked rocks that make the muddy beach such treacherous footing, he drops to a knee and curses. His bundle, suddenly shifted to an insupportable angle, thuds to the ground. He curses again, rises, yanks at the coarse fabric with which his load is wrapped, and tries to drag it closer to the water. But the weave tears, flinging out an arm and leg of the person enfolded within. In the moon’s glare, the skin is pearl-pale, female, and young. The foot wears a heel-worn shoe but no stocking; the arm, or what can be seen of it, is equally bare.

Cursing more savagely because of this unwanted exposure, the would-be pallbearer attempts to stuff both extremities back inside the cloak within which the woman is enshrouded, but her body, though supple, won’t cooperate, leaving him no recourse but to grab hold of her ankles and drag her across the sharp stones, mossy hummocks, and semi-submerged beds of bivalves that rim the Delaware’s edge. The woman’s head clatters with this rough treatment; her dark hair comes loose, spilling across the miry muck, while her face twists to gaze heavenward. The eyes are open in death.

The man pauses again. As he bends over her motionless form, his shadow casts her visage in darkness so the bruise that empurples her cheek becomes invisible and the blood dried upon her mouth looks no more dangerous than spittle. Damn you for a weakling. If I’d known what a tender piece you were, I never would have … With that abortive apology, he straightens and brushes all traces of her cloak from his shoulders and arms, then attacks the mud staining his trousers and boots with equal vigor.

Finished with these ministrations, he regards the body, judging whether or not the position is sufficiently within the tidal range and whether he can rely upon its being borne seaward when the waters again flow south. She’ll float for a while, he decides, and perhaps be snagged by a fishing rig when she does finally sink, but no one will question whence she came. A poor woman dressed in cheap finery, a woman paid for whatever charms she could muster. Probably a suicide, will be the consensus. A girl of the streets with a grievous conscience and no known address or family or friends. No wonder she took her own life.

He leaves her, walking away with an easier step and looking for all the world like a drunkard outpacing an evening of inebriation.

When he’s sufficiently removed from the spot, he glances riverward again, shielding his eyes against the moon’s sharp sheen. The Delaware lies flat and gray white, the vessels at anchor somnolent. On this August night, there’s not a breath of air, which provides him opportunity to listen for human sounds nearby: a furtive, following footfall, or a betraying belch of a sodden carouser.

He’s rewarded with no noise other than an occasional clang of a halyard slapping against a mast. His passage here remains unrecorded.

He climbs the bank, achieves the empty street, pretending to totter slightly as if still under the influence, then turns to gaze behind him once more. Within his searching gaze, the beach rocks glisten against the darker earth while the moon persists in its insensate beaming.

He nods and begins to walk northward toward the heart of the city, leaving within the tide’s easy reach the dead body of a girl who will soon vanish from all living memory. Except that she isn’t dead.

CHAPTER 2

HER UNDYING DEVOTION

Gideon Sark bends to his work, his expression like that of a marble angel brooding above some lofty sanctuary rather than a small, hot room overlooking a rear alleyway in Philadelphia. Save for the movements of his agile fingers, he’s motionless, his concentration on his labors absolute. The stench of rotten soup bones and pickled fish, or the fetor of overflowing privies are of no more consequence to him than the flies clamoring at the windowpanes near his head, or the roar of voices from the neighboring alleys and courtyards that stretch down to the commercial docks on the Delaware River two blocks eastward. Sark’s gaze remains fixed on the paper resting within his grasp, and on the image he has etched there and is now treating with color: Icarus in flight, his wings tipped with gold, his countenance radiating hope.

Examining the picture and others identical to it that lie stacked in a neat pile, he nods approval. A creator of counterfeit notes unsurpassed in the nation, a man who’s famed for being able to engrave the whole of the Lord’s Prayer on a coin the size of a thumbnail, he’s deservedly proud of his talent. If he were to turn his gifts to legitimate portraiture … but no, he could never forsake the black-leg game and the heart-stopping race against time and the clumsy feet of the law.

Invent a bank (The Merchants and Seafarers Safety Exchange, say); give it a handsome pictorial portrait (a depiction of ship masts outlined against a sugar refinery and textile mill, perhaps); add to that florid signatures of apparently esteemed gentlemen; apply a subtle blend of tint and gilt to the finest rag paper, and then, by means of couriers, shovers, pushers, and confidence men, send the freshly minted creations into circulation where the odds are extraordinarily high that they’ll be accepted as the genuine article. Dizzying amounts of true currency will then be reaped by Sark and his masters. Until, of course, that famous publication Bicknell’s Reporter and Counterfeit Detector discovers the fraud and subsequently reveals it to the shopkeepers, constables, and merchants who rely upon its guidance. The threat of Bicknell’s notwithstanding, the black-leg trade has taken the nation by storm. Wealth beyond measure for such easy labor! No need to toil from birth till death. Live like a king or a financier. Dine on fine viands and sip rare wines. The Garden of Eden is yours—to hell with the snakes. That’s Gideon’s unspoken credo; in his mind, he’s Dick Turpin and Robin Hood rolled into one: an honorable thief preying upon a venal aristocracy. And like those famous men, he aims to become a legend in his own right. Gideon has always had ambitious dreams.

A passing cloud produces a brief shadow in his improvised studio at the top of the house on Almond Street, causing him to glance upward in alarm. Although assured that all is safe, he hides his work beneath a clean cloth on his drafting table. Then he pauses, smiling his proud, private smile, before returning to the more prosaic efforts by which he earns his daily bread: this one a matter of raising legitimate one-dollar notes to resemble ten-dollar bills. Scrutinizing the forgeries, Sark stands to his full height, which is just under five feet six inches. For all his physical perfection—and he is that—he’s not tall. As he straightens himself, a woman slips into the room, a flame-haired temptress with calculating, feline eyes. She creeps up behind him and touches his shoulder, her gesture so gentle she might be stroking a sleeping child.

Bloody hell, Leonora! You know to knock!

Do I? She laughs, then tilts her face down toward him, for she’s nearly two inches taller. "I suppose I forgot. I trust you’ll forgive me. Thee will, I should say." She laughs again. Her hand remains on his shoulder.

Today’s disguise? The innocent Quaker lady clothed in the drabbest gray?

Not today, but when it suits, Gideon. When it suits. She moves her fingers down the shirtfront made damp by the steamy August day until they rest on the bulge in his fashionable fawn-colored trousers. Sark doesn’t stint on his attire, or his need for bodily comforts. Stiff from all that hard work, I see. What a trial your chosen profession is.

Leaving her to play with him or not, he bundles the notes while she watches, absorbed in both activities at once. Leonora—her true name—to which she adds Kelp or Culp or Jardine or Jaycocks or DeWaeles or any other number of aliases, has the gift of being able to perform several functions concurrently, and with equal deliberation. Good. They’re good, she observes as her fingers quiver back and forth, up and down.

Your husband has a dealer ready.

Does he, now? she says while the smallest of frowns knifes through her eyes, revealing the fact that this information is unexpected. Someone new, or a proven shover?

Why not ask Otis if you’re curious?

Perhaps I will.

And perhaps he won’t tell you.

Bloody hell, Gideon. You know you can trust me.

Can I, Mistress Nora? A woman who beds her husband’s employer, and under his complaisant nose?

You’re as guilty as I am. Besides, Otis counts you as a friend.

I’m no man’s friend. Nor woman’s neither. You should have realized that by now.

So you keep telling me. She removes her hand and her ministrations, turning away toward his drafting table.

Petulance ill becomes you, my dear.

She doesn’t answer. Instead her fingers begin to riffle idly through the raised bills before lifting the cloth under which Sark concealed his latest work. What’s this?

My most recent efforts. My best to date.

Leonora holds up the paper and grins. As I live and breathe, if it isn’t Gideon Sark got up as one of God’s own angels! I’ve glimpsed that look on your face when we take our pleasure up here of an afternoon. What are they for? Have you learned that the church is planning to mint its own money? Without waiting for an answer, she sniffs the ink. The bills smell too fresh.

They won’t be ready for some little while. And it’s not a holy creature you see there, but a man—

Just as I said, a man who looks exactly like you. Her grin grows bawdier. But with feathers.

Taking back the trial notes, Sark laughs. "Icarus belongs to ancient history; his father, Daedalus, was a master builder escaping from a wicked king of Crete. In preparation, he crafted wings for his son, warning him not to fly too close to the sun. ‘Daedalus interea Creten longumque perosus … ’ Ovid’s Metamorphosis—"

Do the Koniakers know about this? Leonora interrupts. She has no patience with Gideon’s book learning. Nor with the weird foreign words he likes to spout.

What do you think?

That it’s a dangerous game you’re starting if they haven’t approved it.

Then the less you learn, the better.

But those men up north—

Enough. Sark’s tone has turned harsh, his expression harder. I establish the rules here, not you. And not your devoted spouse. My trade. My decisions. Understand? Finished with his rebuke, he returns his masterpieces to their hiding place while Leonora’s expression changes from anger to hurt to sorrow. The last emotion she tries to mask with a practiced leer. She fails.

So this Icarus flew like a birdie? she asks by way of conciliation.

Until he didn’t, is the curt reply.

When Sark says no more, Leonora tries another gambit to placate him. Shall I summon Otis? You said he had a shover ready.

Not yet. We’ve time enough, and I believe you had another motive for entering my workroom. Despite this declaration, Sark’s attention remains focused on the raised notes; he rubs the paper between his thumb and forefinger, and strokes the reconfigured numbers. Too easy, he mutters. Give me a new engraving any day, a bit of artistry and whimsy, tobacco juice to ‘age’ the paper, ash to dry and soften the notes. The prick of a dirty needle and a line of coarse thread to bundle each packet—as if they’d been minted by honest hands. And the unsuspecting merchant who will swear up and down that the things are genuine.

Raised or fresh makes no difference, Gideon. Three dollars or one hundred buys the same amount whatever the currency’s history.

So what’s today’s disguise, my Nora? A fine lady purchasing cashmere for a gown? ‘Oh, kind mister shopkeeper, might you accept this large bill? I’m afraid I’ve journeyed to Philadelphia to visit family and brought nothing of a smaller denomination. Foolish me …’ Or perhaps you’ll pretend to have a sickly infant hidden under a blanket and declare you need healthful food for the wee mite?

Whatever suits, Gideon. Whatever suits.

Holding the pile of bills aloft, he pulls her close. My bewitching girl. You’d do anything to shove those notes, wouldn’t you? Bed an immigrant sailor just off a merchant ship—or a financier stinking of eau de cologne. With that he lowers them both to the floor, unbuttoning his trousers while she hikes up her skirts. The fact that their lovemaking never occurs in his bedchamber grieves Leonora, but she’s learned to take what she can get, for the truth is that she’s in love with Gideon Sark.

I’d do anything you asked of me—

Dally with a baker covered in flour and stinking of yeast?

I haven’t tried that yet.

But you would, wouldn’t you? Anyone who’d provide for you. Even misguided Otis.

No more of this talk. I’m yours, heart and soul, Gideon. You know that.

The vixen has a soul, after all. Wonders never cease.

Heart and soul and body, Gideon.

Her undying devotion.

As Leonora expected, her husband has been awaiting her return to their bedchamber.

You’ve been awhile, is all he says when she steps into the room carrying the forged notes. The tone equivocates, a statement of fact masking a complaint. For Otis, Nora is the light of his life and savior of his feeble frame.

She inclines her head, and gazes into his beseeching eyes. You know how demanding the master can be when he’s creating his artwork.

Coombes’s response is to jitter his shoulders up and down. If it weren’t for his tics and fidgets and the desire for admiration that dog his every move, he might be considered a well-formed man. Instead, he gives the impression of clownish need, which makes him appear hunched and weak. Aye, I do.

You should know better than to fret over how much of my time our Mr. Sark requires.

It’s on Otis’s mind to make a cutting remark about Gideon’s incessant demands. Instead, he mumbles, He asks too much of you. As your husband and helpmeet, I should bear the greater burden. Let me go in your stead next time. I can stitch false bills together the same as you.

A fine husband you are, Otis dear, but you know I must do my share to earn our daily keep.

Although his brain recognizes the manipulation in his wife’s speech, he can’t help but beam his gratitude at that single word fine.

And you are my lovely missus.

Your stash, is her sole reply as she slaps half of the counterfeit notes into his hand. And mine.

Coombes examines the paper. He may look ill prepared for the world of larceny, but his seeming desperation provides an advantage. When he passes false currency, he pretends to miscount the amount, or feigns country ways, or a simpleton’s inability to understand the value of the bills. Only honest shopkeepers point out his errors; the rest view his apparent stupidity as a boon. Thus Otis turns the tables; his victims’ greed draws them into the trap. Where will you venture today, dear?

It’s best you don’t know, husband. What I do and how might upset your masculine sensibilities. And you?

It has never occurred to him to challenge his wife on this secretive arrangement. He doesn’t now. Sark has a potential shover he wants me to interview.

Indeed? He didn’t tell me. A woman or a man?

A man, an actor—

Ah, an actor … Sark tried that before. With no success. Why would he consider making the same mistake?

This one is a magician of some type. A ‘Fakir’ from the far-off East—

The one performing at the Masonic Hall? ‘The Master of Miracles and Fascination’?

The very fellow. You are observant, Leonora.

And Sark believes this ‘Fakir’ can be trusted? A spurious wizard covered in greasepaint and gaudy?

I’m to be the judge of the man’s capabilities. If I deem he’s acceptable, these notes pass into his hands—for a price. After that, if he and I agree to do business together, he’ll work his craft through me. As to the act being a sham, wouldn’t that suit our needs better than honest magic?

"Honest magic? Leonora laughs. If this actor cheats his audiences with crafty tricks, couldn’t he do the same with us?"

The fellow will be under my sharpest scrutiny, and I’ll report everything to Gideon. This is only the first test, you know.

Perhaps. Then she adds a terse, I mustn’t keep you.

My dear, I’m happy to linger a little longer … After that excellent midday meal you prepared, I must say I feel the urge for a bit of repose. He moves closer, his intent obvious, but Leonora waves him away.

We can take our fun on the mattress when night comes. Now go examine your false Fakir.

Another few moments won’t hurt.

Go, Otis.

A few minutes, dear-heart—

No. Sark has work for you to do. And me, too. When he remains undecided, she gives him a playful push. I swear you’re as insatiable as a randy lad. Now, go away and give me some peace. We can bill and coo to our hearts’ content tonight.

Not if Sark calls you away again.

Off with you, Coombes. Dithering won’t put coins in our pockets.

With her husband gone, Leonora hurries about, choosing today’s disguise. Sweeping her bright curls beneath the muted silk of a bonnet and pinning a small cameo brooch in place, she frowns, conjuring up images of Coombes and Sark in the looking glass. To her superstitious eyes, they look like corpses, their lips silenced but their expressions brimful of hunger and reproof. She glowers and shifts her focus to the cameo, pricking her finger on the brooch’s clasp. Bloody hell, she swears as she licks the wound. Bloody, bloody hell.

Ambling north and west through the city toward the Masonic Hall, Coombes finds his thoughts buoyed up by Sark’s increasing confidence in him and so doesn’t notice the miasma of sewage and horse dung that hovers over the roadways, or the heat bouncing off every wall and cobbled path. His bony chest swells with pride while he leaves behind the docks and warehouses, the shouts of carters and protesting bellows of their beasts. As he enters Society Hill, the streets and sidewalks broaden; the houses become grand; wrought iron, polished till it gleams like jet, forms fanciful curlicues in banisters and gates. The passersby change. Ladies and gentlemen come and go. Otis regards them: the men with their tall hats the women trailing lengths of silken fabrics. Leonora is every bit their equal, he thinks, and scowls.

I must have money, he tells himself, real money, not sham notes to fob off on unsuspecting merchants or sell at three-quarter value to other shovers. I must have a stake of my own, and a house for my Nora. A proper home with servants and a little garden, and a carriage at her beck and call. My wife is better than the damnable females who sit behind these pretty windows. She should have whatever her heart desires. His pace slows as he imagines the happy scenes: Nora ensconced in a pretty bower; Nora nibbling sweetmeats; Nora beckoning him into a bed soft enough to suit a queen.

He stifles a sigh, then reluctantly quits this stretch of the city, turning west into the commercial center of the metropolis. Residences give way to purveyors of gentlemen’s toupees and wigs, to booksellers and spirits merchants, a portrait painter’s studio, and several hotels. He pulls from his pocket the advertising card Sark cut from one of the newspapers:

The Famed Fakir of Ava with his Grand Soirees of Hindoo Miracles, Mythology, Demonology and Fascination—Now Returned to Our Fair City in a Series of Popular Exhibitions.

Assisted by the Hindoo Princess Nourhina Khah, a Young Personage from Khurasan Who Has No Other Language Than Her Native Tongue, and by the Remarkable Child-Sorcerer Hassan-ben-Abel, the Fakir’s Engagement at the Masonic Hall is for a Limited Period Only. Patrons are Urged to Purchase Seats at Their Earliest Convenience so as to Avoid Disappointment.

Coombes returns the clipping to his jacket, surreptitiously tapping the counterfeit notes as if they were genuine currency. As he does, a searing pain attacks his abdomen, and he’s forced to pause for breath. Bile stings the back of his throat. His stomach heaves, and he leans heavily against a wall. I must have eaten something rancid. Spoiled fish or meat … what did we consume, Nora, Sark, and I? It was a tasty dish, though it did produce a thirst. Pork, was it that she cooked, pork with a sauce of minced oysters? And brined eels, maybe?

Trying to recall the meal sends his innards reeling again. For a moment, he considers going home rather than continuing with his task. Leonora must have remedies at hand, lime water or magnesia or some such. Instead, he gulps at the air and stumbles on. Concentrate, Otis. You’ll never provide your Nora with riches by turning tail and running away.

CHAPTER 3

THE CITY IS FULL OF TORMENT

Otis Coombes may be struggling to keep his rendezvous at the Masonic Hall, and the patrons eager to witness the Fakir of Ava’s display of miracles and demonology may be lining up to purchase advance tickets for that evening’s performance, but a very different scene is being enacted in a leafier— and loftier—section of the city. Here the houses are as stately as dowagers overseeing a cotillion. There’s an inflexible grandeur in their architecture, in the windows draped against the heat, and the marble stairs leading to each main entrance. As if constructed for giants, the doors are built to intimidate; the brasses dotting them glisten like polished armor. Only the homeowners and their acquaintances, or the tradespeople with business along this particular block of Spruce and Eighth Streets are comfortable traversing the roadway and pavement that’s swept as scrupulously as an interior courtyard.

In the second-floor parlor in one of these mansions, two women are engaged in a prickly conversation. Although their surroundings are gracious, triple-hung windows and ample space in which to spread the divans and furbelows requisite to equip a fashionable withdrawing room, their dialogue is anything but.

Once an actress, always an—

Yes … Yes, I know, Daphne. You told me before how fortunate I am never to have been forced into conversation with her, but still—

Daphne snaps her fan shut, which has the desired result of silencing her sister. Her elder sister by five years, it must be noted, although only a discrepancy in their physical attributes and choice of wardrobe reveals this fact. Daphne has always been mistress of the two.

"But still nothing, Liddie. A sentimental heart has been your undoing in the past. One would have hoped that late middle age might have brought you wisdom. Regrettably, such is not the case." The fan opens again, Daphne’s chubby, bejeweled hand shaking it through the air as if the thing were engineered to shovel coal ashes from the hearth rather than stir a breeze. Were it not for the rings dotting her fingers, Daphne’s hand could be mistaken for an under-housemaid’s.

Liddie makes no reply, but her sigh, long and fulsome, speaks volumes about her unexpressed opinion. Her face, less fleshy and pampered than her sister’s, bears the mark of numerous disappointments; her attire also reflects the inequality of her life and Daphne’s. Cambric rather than silk, a single antique brooch instead of a double strand of pearls.

Come, dear, don’t turn sulky. The judge will be home soon for his midday repast, and he doesn’t wish to see his favorite sister-in-law in a pique. Or worse, morose. You know what arduous hours he keeps. The fact that the meal must be served as late as half past one should be an indication that you need to affix your cheeriest demeanor.

I’m his only sister-in-law, is the answer to this directive.

You are in a querulous humor, aren’t you?

I’m merely stating the obvious.

Stating the obvious is not feminine, Liddie. Charm, grace, and tact are virtues you should have learned. Mother attempted to teach you, God knows—

And the woman has a child, too. A little boy. What a difficulty for a wee one if there’s distress at home.

Who? The fan shuts again, then as rapidly flies open.

The actress. Becky Grey.

"Oh, really, Liddie! Must you keep harping on that woman? What difference does it make to us if there’s distress in her home? As far as I’m concerned, William Taitt can send her packing. Wouldn’t it be better for any child—especially a boy—to be reared by a respectable gentleman like Taitt rather than his trollop of a wife?"

Oh!

Forgive me if I offend your modest ears, but you need to confront reality on occasion. What persuaded him to marry her in the first place? He’s from a very old family, after all. A much-respected family. And he owns a plantation of several thousand acres in South Carolina. That should impress you, at least.

It does. It means he keeps slaves—

Not another of your abolitionist rants, Liddie, I beseech you. You cannot change the world. Slavery may be wrong—

"It is wrong!"

But it’s the practice of our times and of many other eras, too. Read the Bible if you want proof. Now, come, let us forsake this loathsome topic. You and I will never agree.

There are plenty of folk who feel as I do, though.

Daphne frowns, then purposely affixes a bland expression. She doesn’t intend on becoming an old woman with a furrowed brow and a pinched, disapproving mouth. Let us not vex each other with policies we can’t alter. The judge wouldn’t want to find us quarreling.

We’ll dispense with Taitt’s residence in South Carolina for the time being, Liddie tells her. But I’m not convinced he’s the paragon you believe. In fact, I’ve heard rumors to the opposite. That he consorts with all manner of low and questionable people. There are even murmurs that he raises his hand to his wife—

He’s a man, Liddie, Daphne insists. And men must be excused when we women try their patience. Besides, it’s no business of ours what he does or doesn’t do in the privacy of his home. As for consorting with folk supposedly beneath him, I repeat he’s a man. It’s not for us to judge him.

You’ve just passed judgment on his wife.

A very different thing, I assure you. She’s from London and not a pleasant section of the town either, which is one problem. The other’s worse: she earned her living on the boards.

But to strike any female, Daphne, no matter what her parentage or station in life! Surely that’s a reprehensible?

Sister, dear … Let me restate the obvious. Men are larger than women. And husbands more robust than wives. If a man forgets himself and loses his temper, the fault can be found with the lady. Wives must be obedient in all things. Please put the matter of Mr. Taitt’s supposedly errant behavior out of your head.

Liddie’s too engrossed in her argument to hunt for significance within these words. Instead she ignores what might have served as a confession. Martha Beale has taken her up, you know. Don’t you think a connection as elevated as that proves—

Oh, pooh! Miss Beale has wealth, no doubt. However—

However?

"Liddie! Do not interrupt me. I was attempting to say that riches can never buy taste. If Martha Beale chooses to befriend actresses, that’s hardly a recommendation that you and I should