Free The Sleeping Partner by Madeleine E. Robins

that there were no men in the Library whom Miss Tolerance could inconvenience with her female self. She went at once to the Peerage, a thick, important looking tome bound in gilded calf, which rested on its own stand but, by the evidence of a slight rime of dust, was not much consulted by Tarsio’s members. Miss Tolerance paged through until she found the entry she sought.
     
    Lyne of Wandfield
    Charles Loudon Thorpe, Third Baron, b. June 12, 1758, Wandfield, Warwickshire, m. September 12, 1781 Henrietta Mallon, daughter Sir Peter Mallon (d) and Anne Crossways of Warwick. Issue: Henry Mallon Thorpe, b. 1782; John David Thorpe, b. 1784; Clarissa Adele, b. 1787; and Evadne Henrietta, b. 1795. Principal residence Whiston Hall, Wandfield, Warwickshire.
     
    There was more regarding the family’s history; the book was also a decade old, and did not mention the husband to which “Mrs. Brown” had referred, but it was quite sufficient for Miss Tolerance’s purposes. Blessing the fondness of her countrymen for setting down such information usefully where a working woman could find it, Miss Tolerance copied the entry, made her way downstairs, and desired Steen to call her a hackney carriage to Savoy Court. She intended to call upon an expert of her acquaintance, to see what she could learn about the family of Evadne Henrietta Thorpe.
     
    The Liberty of Savoy has been since the days of Henry III a harbor from arrest for debtors and Sunday-men of all sorts. Here can be seen gentlemen whose silver buttons, pocket watches and handkerchiefs have lately been pawned to pay for dinner, drink, or another round of play; businessmen hoping to stay ruin by borrowing at calamitous interest; ladies picking their way through the muck to find a sympathetic cents-per-cent with an open purse; and, always, poor men on the lookout for the Bailiff’s staff. The air in the Liberty of Savoy might smell of ordure, sweat, mold, and coal dust, like many other London neighborhoods, but the underlying reek was of desperation.
    Mr. Boddick, the tapster at the Wheat Sheaf, was drawing off a pint. On observing Miss Tolerance he nodded cordially, delivered the ale to its purchaser, and inquired what her pleasure might be.
    “Good afternoon, Mr. Boddick. How do you do? And Mrs. Boddick? Is Mr. Glebb very busy?” She looked toward the corner nearest the fire, where an elderly man wearing blue broadcloth and a clean, highly starched shirt was in close conversation with an anxious fellow in smock and gartered sleeves.
    “There’s two or three already waiting for ‘im, miss. Will you take something?”
    Miss Tolerance slid a coin across the bar, ordered coffee for herself and, as was her custom, urged Boddick to draw a pint of something for himself. The tapster nodded his thanks, served Miss Tolerance, then drew off a pint of bitter and drank a long gulp with every evidence of pleasure.
    “The weather is turning warm,” Miss Tolerance observed.
    “‘Tis that, miss. What brings you ‘ere today?”
    “The search for understanding, Mr. Boddick. A consultation with Mr. Glebb seemed the place to start.” Miss Tolerance drank a little of her coffee and looked around the room. In one corner near the fireplace Mr. Joshua Glebb held court over a crowd of five or six people. The rest of the room was near empty; she did observe a man sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar by the hearth, in an attitude which suggested that he was not a patron but a member of the establishment. The man’s singular aspect of misery drew Miss Tolerance’s eye; he was pale, unshaven and, despite the fire burning nearby, shivering.
    Mr. Boddick’s gaze followed Miss Tolerance’s. “My brother Bob. Used to be an Army man ‘til his lot got sent to Walcheren with Chatham’s force that took the fever.”
    Miss Tolerance regarded the unhappy Bob with sympathy. The British assault upon Napoleon’s naval forces in the low-lands of Holland in 1809 had been turned back, not by