Tilly True Read Free

now grey and crumbling and the paintwork blistered and peeling, had been built overlooking the municipal graveyard. The small-paned windows were opaque with cataracts of grime, staring blindly at the high wall of the cemetery. Tilly couldn’t help wondering if the twenty-foot-high wall was to keep the spirits of the dead from roaming into the world of the living, or to keep the resurrection men from snatching the bodies. Realising that Francis had sprinted up the steps to the front door of a house in the middle of the row, she quickened her pace.
    Taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, Francis opened the front door. ‘Come along, Tilly.’
    There was an unmistakeable odour of boiled mutton and damp rot lingering in the hallway. The carpet on the stairs was well worn and threadbare in places and the banister handrail glowed with the patina of constant use. The Palgraves’ lodgings were on the first floor and Francis ushered Tilly into a sitting room at the front of the house, overlooking the burial ground. A fire burned in the grate but the room was cheerless and shabbily furnished. It looked to Tilly as though the entire contents were a collection of other people’s cast-offs and the overall impression was brown, from the wallpaper hung with sepia tints to the faded velvet curtains that framed the windows.
    â€˜Francis?’ A young woman jumped up from a sagging wingback chair by the fire, dropping her sewing on the floor. Her smile of welcome wavered when she saw Tilly and was replaced by a look of concern. ‘Good heavens, who is this?’
    Taking off his top hat, Francis set it down on a chair by the door and began methodically to peel off his kid gloves, one finger at a time. ‘Harriet, I want you to meet a very brave young woman. This is Tilly True who, with no apparent thought for her own safety, stood up to a bully of a man who was ill-treating his poor horse. Tilly, this is my sister, Miss Palgrave.’
    Tilly bobbed a curtsey. ‘Honoured, I’m sure, ma’am.’
    â€˜No, please don’t,’ Harriet said, smiling. ‘The days are gone when I was Miss Palgrave of Palgrave Manor. Everyone except Francis calls me Hattie.’
    Tilly eyed her with growing suspicion. Toffs didn’t encourage servant girls to be familiar and this young woman, although apparently living in straitened circumstances, was obviously a lady. ‘I just come in to get warm, miss. I’ll be leaving in a minute or two.’
    Harriet’s delicate brown eyebrows winged into two arcs. ‘My dear girl, you’re hurt,’ she said, touching the congealed blood on Tilly’s forehead. ‘You’re going nowhere until I’ve cleaned up that wound.’
    â€˜There’s blood on her back too,’ Francis said, frowning. ‘It looks as though the poor girl has taken a terrible beating.’
    Tilly backed away. ‘Mind your own business.’
    â€˜Leave her alone, Francis. You’re not in the pulpit now.’ Harriet slipped her hand through Tilly’s arm. ‘Come with me, Tilly. We’ll clean you up and find you something dry to wear.’
    â€˜And then I’m going.’
    â€˜Of course, and I’ll loan you a coat and an umbrella. Something truly awful must have happened to make you leave home without so much as a shawl. But we won’t ask questions, will we, Francis?’
    Francis nodded. ‘If you can manage on your own, Harriet, I’ll finish what I set out to do.’
    â€˜Of course I can manage. I’m not entirely useless.’
    â€˜That’s not what I meant and you know it.’
    â€˜Yes you did. You know you did. It isn’t my fault that I don’t know how to keep house.’
    â€˜This isn’t the time or place to discuss our private business, Harriet.’ Giving her a reproachful glance, Francis picked up his hat and gloves. ‘Goodbye, Tilly. It was a privilege to meet someone as