The Agency: A Spy in the House

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2009 by Y. S. Lee

  Cover photograph copyright © 2010 by Scott Nobles

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2010

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover as follows:

  Li, Rushang.

  A spy in the house / Y. S. Lee.—1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm. — (The agency; bk. 1)

  Summary: Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, where she is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called the Agency, and at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant’s home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships.

  ISBN 978-0-7636-4067-5 (hardcover)

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Swindlers and swindling—Fiction. 3. Household employees—Fiction. 4. Sex role—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction. 6. London (Eng.)—History—19th century—Fiction. 7. Great Britain—History—Victoria, 1837–1901—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.L591173Spy 2010

  [Fic]—dc22 2009032736

  ISBN 978-0-7636-5182-4 (electronic)

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  visit us at www.candlewick.com

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  About the Author

  She should have been listening to the judge.

  Instead, Mary’s attention was focused on the flies swarming around her ankles in the prisoner’s dock and their primary interest: the pool of stale urine at her feet. It wasn’t hers. Some poor fool must have lost control of his bladder earlier in the day, but the puddle would remain until . . . well, until long after her case was finished, at any rate.

  It was odd how her senses shifted. In the late afternoon heat, the flies’ buzzing was the loudest sound in her mind. The judge’s nasal tenor was far down the list, well after the persistent cackling of someone in the gallery. If she squinted in just the right way, she could make out a halo of loose, grayish hair. Mad? Or merely relieved that it was someone else in the dock?

  The prosecutor — deformed by his wig, white powder drifting off it every time he turned his neck — had enjoyed himself hugely. He’d made much of her youth — “How much more depraved is one so young, who has already trod so far and so fast through the thorny thickets of evil?” — and her dangerous looks — “Such pitch-black hair is a token of her pitch-black soul. Such evil should be nipped in the bud” — and by that cliché, he meant to hang her. She had not spoken in her own defense. She had nothing to say.

  The judge’s voice, threading its way amid the excited droning of the flies, loomed suddenly close and intimate. “For the crime of housebreaking, Mary Lang, you are hereby sentenced to hang by the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy on your soul.” The last sentence sounded like mockery. How could it not?

  There was some minor shuffling in the room but no murmurs of surprise. Mary lifted her chin and gazed steadily into the gallery, where the spectators looked uncomfortable in the late summer heat. Only one figure — a woman dressed in light mourning, her veil rolled back — met her eyes. And winked.

  Mary blinked. When she looked again, the lady was gone. Then the wardress was dragging her from the prisoner’s box and leading her out of the courtroom, down the long, dung-and-onion-smelling corridor toward the cool damp of the cellar.

  The wardress flung a brawny arm round her shoulder and jostled her roughly. “Don’t you faint, now, young woman.” Her voice was hoarse, with a West Country accent.

  Caught off guard, Mary stumbled. “I won’t,” she muttered, but the woman shoved down onto Mary’s shoulders again, hard enough to make her knees buckle.

  “May the Lord have mercy on your puny weak soul, indeed!” Under the cover of her petticoats, the wardress kicked Mary’s foot, sending her stumbling once again. “Lawsamercy, you scrawny brat, none of this nonsense!”

  They had nearly reached the turnkey. Behind her back, the wardress administered a sharp twist to Mary’s left wrist. The iron cuffs cut into her flesh, causing her to hiss in surprise. The woman shook her shoulders roughly, gabbling the whole time at the turnkey. “The bloody girl’s fainting! I’m not having these fine-lady airs, that’s for certain!” Her strident voice drowned out the responses of the nearby jailers. “A good ducking in the horse trough will sort her out!” cried the woman furiously.

  Mary chose to go limp. What was another quarter of an hour’s bullying to her? She was dragged outside and across the cobbled yard, the wardress still scolding and shaking her vigorously. The men clustered about the door, grinning at the spectacle. As she approached the trough in the corner of the courtyard, lugging Mary under her arm, the wardress produced a coarse handkerchief from her pocket and clamped it over Mary’s nose and mouth. A new smell, sweet and cold, flooded her nostrils. She struggled for a moment, briefly bewildered by the expression in the woman’s eyes.

  And then the sky went black.

  Was this death? Her mouth felt thick, as did her head. Her fingertips were numb. She twitched them experimentally and realized with a small shock that her wrists were no longer shackled. Indeed, she was floating, swaddled in linen and soft blankets. She turned her cheek to one side and rubbed against the pillow, catlike. The scent was pleasant and totally unfamiliar. No lake of burning fire so far. No heavenly choir, either. She saw no reason to move or even to open her eyes.

  “Mary?”

  She hadn’t considered that God might be female. Slowly, reluctantly, she raised heavy eyelids and focused on the speaker. The woman had changed her lavender mourning dress for something darker, but it was she: the lady who’d winked at her from the gallery. That meant this was neither hell nor heaven.

  “How do you feel?”

  The question seemed irrelevant. Mary let her gaze slide around the room — large, simply furnished, lit by candles — and back to the Winker. “I don’t know.”

  “Your head might ache; chloroform sometimes has that effect, although we use as little as possible.”

  Chloroform: a fancy word for a dangerous substance. She’d heard whispers of potions that knocked one out but always dismissed them as wishful lies.

  “You must be thirsty.” The Winker of
fered a glass of something pale and cloudy. At Mary’s hesitation, she smiled. “It’s quite safe to drink.” To demonstrate, she took a sip.

  Mary’s first taste was tentative. Then, as the cool liquid filled her mouth, she guzzled it greedily. Lemonade. She’d had it once before, a couple of years ago. Now she was sorry when it was all gone. Wiping her mouth, she looked at the lady. She still felt fuzzy-headed, but her curiosity was strong. “Why?”

  “Why don’t I begin with who and where? Then I’ll get to why and how.”

  Mary nodded. She felt mocked.

  The lady sat down beside the bed. “My name is Anne Treleaven,” she began, “and I am the head teacher here at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls. Our founder was an eccentric and wealthy woman whose desire was to help women achieve a measure of independence. Education for girls in our country is generally very inferior, even for the rich, and many girls receive none at all. So Miss Scrimshaw founded a school.”

  She spoke quietly, but her eyes were sharp, and they rarely left Mary’s face. “We are a little like a charity school, since most of our students would not normally be able to afford our fees. However, we are a very unusual institution in that we often select our students instead of waiting for them to come to us. We search for girls who would most benefit from the special training we offer.” She paused. “We have chosen you.”

  Mary scowled. “I suppose you think that’s generous. What makes you think I want to be chosen? Suppose I want to hang?”

  Instead of shock and outrage, Anne’s face showed mild amusement. “Don’t bristle. We don’t intend to keep you here by force. You may leave at any time and go directly to the gallows, if you wish. But I hope you will at least listen to me for a few minutes before choosing.”

  Mary felt both churlish and childish. She shrugged.

  “My colleagues have been watching you for some time. You know one of them as the wardress at the Old Bailey, of course; another observed you in Newgate prison during the weeks before your sentencing. They were both struck by your intelligence. They were also intrigued by the fact that you pled guilty instead of insisting upon a trial. Most people charged with capital crimes insist upon their innocence, whether they are truly innocent or not. But you didn’t. Why not, Mary?”

  After a pause, Mary shrugged again. “Maybe I was fed up.”

  Anne’s eyes glinted. “With lying? Stealing?” She refilled Mary’s glass and passed it to her. “Or perhaps with living?”

  Mary’s blink was the equivalent of a full confession from another, less hardened, girl.

  “You are surprisingly resigned to death, for one so young.”

  “Twelve years is enough for me,” she said. Well-meaning strangers — women, especially — were forever trying to coax her into a tearful confession of her life’s sufferings. She hadn’t fallen for that sort of rubbish in years.

  Anne raised one thin eyebrow. “That is what my colleagues suspected, and that is why we brought you to the Academy: in the hope that you might find the prospect of a different sort of life more tolerable.”

  “As an honest little maid-of-all-work, you mean? So that fine ladies can have the joy of beating me, all for eight quid a year?” She spat on the carpet. “Not I.”

  Anne’s expression hardened. “No, Mary, not that. Not ever that.”

  “You’re mad, then. There’s nothing else — not for my sort.”

  “You’re wrong about that.”

  “Am I?”

  “You’re clever, Mary. And fierce. And ambitious. There are a few professions open to women; you might join any of these.” Anne paused and inclined her head. “And there are one or two other possibilities available to women of exceptional abilities . . . but to speak of these now would be somewhat, shall we say, premature.”

  This was absurd. Nobody ever got a second chance. Mary knew that much, at least. Oh, Lord — was the unexpected praise going to her head? “What’s your angle?” she demanded.

  Again, Anne appeared unsurprised by the question, the rudeness. “As I explained before, our aim is to offer girls an independent life. Too many women feel forced to marry; even more lack that choice and resort to prostitution, or worse, in order to survive. We believe that a sound education will assist our graduates to support themselves.” She paused. “Not all our pupils succeed. Some girls prefer the idea of marriage to hard work, not realizing that marriage to a brute or a drunkard is more difficult than any profession. But they choose their paths. We cannot force our ideas upon our pupils.

  “But I digress. My colleagues see that you have a taste for independence and the desire to make your own way in the world. You are accustomed to making decisions and caring for yourself. Here at the Academy, we can give you a better chance of achieving that independence. We can help you to escape your life as a thief — to reinvent yourself, if you like. A chance to improve your expectations . . . to become what you might have been had fate been kinder in the first instance.”

  Mary swallowed hard. This woman’s ideas were extraordinary — a giddy, improbable revelation. How was it possible for her feelings to change so quickly? Five minutes earlier, she’d been cursing the woman who had snatched her out of jail and away from the certainty of death. Now she was terrified that all this glowing promise might be merely a cheap confidence trick. “You still haven’t answered my question,” she said gruffly. She feared that her voice was shaking. “What’s in it for you? What’s the catch?”

  Anne’s eyes, she noticed suddenly, were steel gray. “I hate to see girls become victims,” she said with quiet intensity. “You very nearly were. That’s what’s in it for me.” Suddenly, she folded her fingers round Mary’s cold hand. “And the catch, my dear, is that you must be willing to work hard for it. That is all.”

  That handclasp shocked Mary more than a sudden blow. When was the last time she’d been touched? The wardress, of course, had knocked her about a little — all for a good cause, apparently. Men had tried to grope her skirts in the streets. Drunks had reeled against her in mobbed alleys and public houses. Small children had bumped against her as they careened through crowds. But the last time someone had touched her, Mary, with affection . . . that had not happened since her mother had died.

  Shaken, she pulled her hand away. This can’t be true, she said to herself. This must be another dead end. There is no hope. You learned that years ago, you little fool. She drew a steadying breath and opened her lips to snarl all this. Instead, one word came out in a faint voice.

  “Please. . . .”

  Mary took the attic stairs two by two. It was tricky in a steel crinoline and buttoned boots, but she needed some sort of outlet for her nervous energy. Since requesting a meeting with the head teachers earlier that day, she hadn’t been able to concentrate on much. Her first attempt at a knock was shaky, her knuckles barely scraping the heavy oak door. She overcompensated with a pair of rugged thumps and cringed. It sounded as though she were trying to break down the door.

  “Come in,” came the crisp command.

  She swallowed, wiped her palms on her skirts, and turned the polished brass knob. The door glided silently on its hinges, revealing a bland scene: a pair of middle-class women taking afternoon tea. While the ladies looked conventional enough, Mary had quickly learned that between them, they controlled everything about the Academy. “G-good afternoon, Miss Treleaven,” she managed to murmur. “Mrs. Frame.”

  Anne beckoned her forward. “Come in, Mary. Do sit down.”

  “Th-thank you.” She dropped into the nearest seat, a slippery horsehair chair that immediately attempted to deposit her onto the floor. She didn’t normally stammer. Never had. This was a devil of a time to begin.

  Anne poured a third cup of tea and handed it to her. It was a very warm day, especially up in the attic. As a curl of steam reached her nostrils, Mary blinked, her nervousness doubling. She was holding a cup of Lapsang souchong, a tea the ladies generally reserved for special occasions.

  “Would you l
ike a slice of cake?” Anne indicated the seedcake on the tray at her elbow.

  The idea made Mary’s stomach clench. “Thank you, no.” The more she tried to steady her nerves, the more her cup rattled in its saucer.

  “You wished to speak with us.” To Mary’s surprise, Anne rose and began to pace restlessly before the cold fireplace. Mary’s glance flicked toward Felicity Frame, who remained seated. The two women seemed opposites in all ways: Anne was thin, plain, and quietly serious, while Felicity was tall and curvy, a striking beauty with a rich laugh.

  Mary moistened her lips. “Yes.” When they remained silent, she supposed there was nothing else to do but begin. “I am very grateful to you for rescuing me from the gallows and for the education you have given me. I owe you everything, quite literally. But I have been thinking of my future, and I wish — that is, I do not think . . .” Mary faltered. Her carefully rehearsed speech was evaporating before their grave, curious faces.

  She took a scalding sip of tea. Why serve a special tea today? A strong sense of guilt prompted her to speak quickly and bluntly. “What I mean to say is that for some time I have been questioning my position as an assistant teacher. While I enjoy living here at the Academy, I know that I’m not very good at the work. I do like the girls, but I lack the patience to be a teacher.”

  She hurried on without looking up. “I’m afraid it gets worse. Two years ago, I took lessons in shorthand and typing, but I do not find the repetitive life of a clerk appealing. Last year, I began preliminary medical training with the idea of becoming a nurse. But the matrons did not have confidence in me, and I was not invited to continue.” She swallowed, the taste of that humiliation still strong in her mouth. “Recently, I have been wondering: Is it not possible — is it even reasonable — to expect something more from my work?”

  Anne looked mildly curious. “What do you mean, ‘something more’?”

  Mary writhed inwardly. “It sounds foolish, I know. . . . I mean a sense of pride and active interest in work . . . even enjoyment. Perhaps satisfaction?” There. It was out. Ungrateful as she was, it was out.

  There was a short pause, but not a flicker of surprise or disappointment showed on either face. Anne spoke first. “How long have you been teaching the junior girls now, Mary?”