Sarah was sent on a perilous mission – and it wasn’t just her life that was in danger
Leave off what you are doing at once, Sarah!’ Putting down the lace collar she was stitching, Sarah Whitlock sighed. What did her mistress need now? Her shoe buckles polishing perhaps? A stain scrubbed from her best satin? Or her latest beauty spot – known as a mouche – repositioning from chin to nose? Such was Mistress Ferndale’s fondness for a roving beauty spot that she was known to her servants as Madame Mouche.
Sarah, however, would never have risked her position by indulging in indiscretion.
She had not risen from kitchen maid to lady’s maid without being as tactful as she was versatile. Only last week, she had adorned both Mistress Ferndale and her pet pug in matching ribbons of the same hue.
Her employer was a rich widow who thought nothing of ordering oranges and caviar for supper. She was a woman of expensive tastes and heightened emotions, which Sarah now saw were activated by a piece of paper in her hand.
‘It is an advertisement in The Daily Post,’ Alicia Ferndale panted, recalling that Sarah could not fully read. ‘It lists certain goods that were stolen this Wednesday last in the city and says they have been recovered to an address in Cheapside. Among them are my plate and silver, all recovered from the blaggards who stole them.’
‘That is good news indeed,’ Sarah replied cautiously.
‘Will you send Morrison to collect them?’
Mistress Ferndale frowned. ‘Too conspicuous, I fear, a tall footman in bright livery. No, I was thinking of you, Sarah. You are of such common visage, no one will look twice at you entering an address in Cheapside.’
‘Indeed,’ nodded Sarah. ‘Now, this place of recovered property is run by a Thomas Swaine. As a thief-taker, his advert asks only for a fee to cover the cost of running his agents – the men he employs to seek out and recover stolen property from the thieves,’ she explained as Sarah furrowed her brow. ‘I shall send you on foot to the address with the recovery fee hidden about your person. Edward will follow separately in the carriage and park in a side street, ready to receive my plate and silver.’
Sarah inclined her head as years of servitude had taught her, though she quailed at her errand.
Supposing she was set upon before reaching her destination and lost the money?
She might then be accused of theft and slung into Newgate Prison, from which few accused of such a crime ever emerged alive…
She realised Mistress Ferndale was still speaking… ‘Discretion is vital because I do not wish to be known as a woman vulnerable to theft,’ she said, agitated. ‘I’m certain Mr Swaine is aware of this fact and will oblige me in dispensing my wishes, Sarah dear.’
Sarah accepted that her course was set. When Mistress Ferndale ca
