Free Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Jem up the stairs.
    "The door flew open and knocked me down," he muttered.
    "And what was you doing then—listening at the keyhold?" Jem turned pale. "Nay, only my joke, lad, never heed it. I do believe all the ill-luck in Battersea falls on your poor head. Come you in and lie down on Libby's bed while I put a bit o' vinegar on it."
    While Mrs. Cobb ministered to the afflicted Jem, Sophie flew about very capably and set to cooking the Best Fresh, and Simon made a monstrous heap of toast and extracted the stopper of the pickled-onion jar. Soon they sat down to a very cheerful meal with the Cobbs.
    Sophie and Mrs. Cobb had a fine time exchanging gossip, for Mrs. Cobb, it appeared, had been a parlormaid at Chippings Castle before she got married.
    "Ah, you're in clover working for her Grace," she declared. "As sweet a lady you'll not find this side of Ticklepenny Corner, poor thing. It's a shame she never had no little ones of her own; if she'd 'a had, I'll be bound they'd be worth twenty of that puny little whey-faced lad they call Lord Bakerloo. He's the Duke's nevvy, you see,"
she went on (like all old retainers, she loved talking about the Family). "The Duke's younger brother, Henry, he married his own cousin, and they had Justin, that was born abroad in Hanoverian parts and sent back to England as a babby when both his parents died. Deary dear, it was a sad end, poor young things, and a sad beginning too—there was aplenty trouble when they married."

    "Why?" asked Sophie.
    "Because they were cousins, and she was half French, and a wild one! Her ma was Lady Helen Bayswater, that's the present Duke's aunt—she fell in love with a French painter escaped from France in the revolution they had, and married him in the teeth of her family as you might say. Famous, he was, but not grand family."
    "Was his name Marius Rivière?" asked Simon.
    "That's it! I never can get my tongue round those Frenchy names! He married Lady Helen and they had the one daughter—what was
her
name? It'll come to me in a minute—and for some time they was at daggers drawn with the old Duke. They say Rivière had been great friends with all the family before, and painted pictures of 'em, but the marriage broke it up. Then Lady Helen's daughter met her cousin, his present Grace's younger brother, and they fell in love, and the trouble began all over. They ran off to Hanover, where his regiment was, and got married. And that was the last that was heard, till word was sent they was dead, and Mr. Buckle fetched back the poor babby. By that the old Duke was dead, and his present Grace had always been fond of his brother, and stood by
him, so he brought up Justin."

    "It's rather sad," Sophie said. "Poor Justin. You can understand why he always seems so miserable. Specially if he has been looked after by that sour Mr. Buckle all his life."
    "Do you know," exclaimed Mrs. Cobb, who had been scrutinizing Simon and Sophie as they sat side by side in the window seat, "you two are as alike as two chicks in a nest! I declare, you might be brother and sister. Are you related?"
    They stared at one another in astonishment. Such an idea had never occurred to them. How strange it would be if they were!
    "We don't know, ma'am," Sophie said at length. "We came to the Poor Farm at different times, you see. I was brought up by a kind old man, a charcoal burner in the forest, till I was seven, and then the parish overseer came and took me away and said I must be with the other orphans. But the old man was not my father, I know. I can remember when he first found me."
    "Who looked after you before that, then, child?"
    "An otter in the forest," Sophie explained. "I can still recall how difficult it was to learn human language, and how strange it seemed to eat anything but fish."
    "An
otter!
Merciful gracious!" Mrs. Cobb flung up her hands. "An otter and then a charcoal burner! It's a wonder you grew up such a beauty, my dear! I'd 'a thought you'd have had webbed feet at the