The Shadow in the Glass by JJA Harwood (any book recommendations txt) 📕

a wet mouth, brown and stinking and ready to swallow her whole. A thick layer of tamped-down sludge coated the pavements and something grimy oozed down a wall. Strings of filthy laundry sagged between the upper windows. A legless beggar slumped against a wall, and Eleanor could not tell if he was drunk or dead.

It wasn’t a long street. In theory, she could be through to Oxford Street in less than five minutes. But the once-grand houses had been built to last, with thick walls and boarded-up windows. Inside one of those tall, dark houses, no one would hear her scream.

‘Well,’ she said, gathering her skirts out of the filth, ‘I suppose we’d better begin.’

They went to the nearest door and knocked. No one answered. Barnes took a long look at the grimy shutters and pushed it open. He held Eleanor back for a few moments before they went inside.

All the floorboards had been ripped up to show the dirt beneath. Limp curtains divided the room into quarters and caught the smell of smoke and damp. Barnes strode across the room and yanked the nearest one back, sending something scuttling into a corner. There was a shriek and Eleanor found herself staring at a terrified Jewish family, clutching at each other and pleading in a language she could not understand.

‘Do you know what they’re saying?’ she asked.

Barnes shook his head.

The next house was little better. In the garret was an old, one-legged soldier whose room was full of twittering songbirds, on the middle floor was a nine-year-old girl dosing a dozen babies with gin, and on the ground floor was a hive of curtained cells, each one with a narrow bed and a few tired-looking women. Next to that was a vast laundry filled with clanking copper drums and shuddering pipes. Then a room where a hobbled old woman boiled vats of oranges and a gambling den blue with smoke. Eleanor longed for the little slice of daylight at the other end of the street. The strings of laundry over her head felt like a descending net.

Barnes had pulled a cosh from his jacket and hammered with it on every door. It was a talisman, she realized. The sound of leather on wood would be enough to tell that he was armed. A group of sailors lurched into the second house and, too late, Eleanor understood what it was. Something sloshed out of a window; Barnes yanked her out of the way. A child laughed, then there was the sound of a smack.

Grimy children, club-footed beggars, hollow-eyed men made thin in the Crimea, women with too many babies and not enough money. Eleanor could feel their desperate eyes on her face and wanted Charles more than ever. How easy it would be to retreat into his soft, warm world, where other people cooked his food and washed his clothes. There she could be laughing, pretty, intriguing, but what was she here? A victim? A threat? How many of these people thought her some kind of inspector, sent to take their children away?

At last they reached the other side. The cosh vanished back into Barnes’s jacket. Eleanor stood in the bright March morning, shaking. Her dress was filthy, she felt clammy all over, and she was still no closer to finding Leah.

She fumbled in her purse and pressed a coin into Barnes’s hand. ‘Thank you, Barnes. If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.’

She should not have done it. It would only make it worse. But still she went to Granborough House and stared at the unlit windows.

Eleanor sat on an overstuffed chair in Mrs Cleary’s dressmaker’s, fighting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. The shop was crammed full of beautiful brocades, rows and rows of ribbons, and counters laden with silks and satins dyed to suit the latest trends. Mrs Cleary was standing at one of the counters examining samples of black silk so rich they almost seemed to glow. Even though no one was watching her, Eleanor was careful not to let her tiredness show. Her face hurt from smiling. She had been patient, tactful, and enthusiastic all morning, and behaving so impeccably was exhausting. Still, it was necessary. Only the wealthy could afford to be rude, she thought, staring at Mrs Cleary.

It was a long way from the muck of St Christopher’s Place. Eleanor had spent the whole of the Easter weekend scrubbing it off her skin. She shuddered. She ought to be glad that Leah was not there, but she could not be. St Christopher’s Place was not bad enough to make it into the papers. There were far worse places Leah could be.

A rustling of skirts nearby made Eleanor start. Miss Hill was standing in front of her.

‘Are you well, Miss Hartley?’ she asked. ‘If you’ll pardon me for saying so, you look a little pale.’

‘I’m simply distracted,’ Eleanor said, keeping one eye on Mrs Cleary. ‘The search for my friend is not going well.’

Miss Hill sat gracefully beside her. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Eleanor stared into her hands. ‘Have you ever tried to find an old friend before?’

Miss Hill gave Eleanor a sad smile. ‘Yes. I found him, too, but I’m afraid the reunion came far too late. Before I came to Mrs Cleary I volunteered as a nurse in the Crimea, and—’ She broke off.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Eleanor said.

‘Please don’t trouble yourself, Miss Hartley. It was sad, of course, but now I find I have little to be sorry for. Mrs Cleary has accepted me in a way that not many other ladies would have done. She can be … particular,’ she said, a knowing look in her eye, ‘but she is very generous.’

Mrs Cleary stumped over to them, her silver-topped cane muffled by the thick carpets. ‘Look at the two of you, gossiping like old hens,’ she said. ‘Now, Miss Hartley, come here. There is a polonaise here that would do for you.’

Her most blinding smile back