The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth by Michelle Paver

blabbed about that gun. It’s like she was trusting him or something.
    Serve her right about the Brownie. Serve her bloody well right.
     
    He tells hisself he’s had a lucky escape, but he don’t know what from.
    So what’s he do? He only goes and sees them again.
    It’s Robbie’s fault, as per usual. One day in August they’re up their place in Shelton Street, and Robbie’s patching over the window with bits of card to keep out the smell of some dead cab-horse down St Giles, and Ben’s on the bed, working his way through the last of the book.
    ‘Them posh bints,’ goes Robbie. He’s been on and on about them for months; keeping tabs on them and all. ‘I heard their old man went to smash.’
    Ben don’t say nothing; he’s on the last page. Now that the war’s over, Blacky the charger’s being sent back home, and Farmer Brown’s got this special meal ready for him.
    ‘Their old man,’ goes Robbie, ‘I heard he croaked and left them stony broke.’
    ‘So?’ growls Ben.
    ‘Can we go and see them? See if they’re all right?’
    ‘Shut it, Robbie.’
    Ben’s done all right with the book, except for words with s-h in them. He’s not sure what the s and the h are supposed to do to each other.
    He’s still wondering about that when he gives in to Robbie’s badgering and they set off west for Madeleine’s place. Just to prove to hisself that she’s not his sister or a friend or nothing.
    When they get to this Wyndham Street where she lives, and he sees how nobby it is, he gives Robbie a cuff that sends him flying. ‘You said they was broke,’ he snarls.
    Broke? In a street like this? Housemaids scrubbing the steps, and a bloke with a water-cart laying the dust? And Madeleine’s house has got these big columns, and railings painted green; steps up to a porch with blue and red tiles, and glassed-in window boxes with frilly plants, and this huge window with all coloured glass: birds and a sun and a wavy blue sea.
    But her basement gate’s wide open and the kitchen door’s ajar, and Ben’s shocked, just shocked. Anybody could walk in off the street. He’ll have to have a word with her about that.
    Robbie says they got no more money for domestics, and sure enough when they nip down the steps, there’s Madeleine standing at this big gas range, all in black with her sleeves rolled up, stirring this big stewpan and frowning at the thickest book Ben’s ever seen. And Sophie’s on the table swinging her legs and chattering nineteen to the dozen. Same pinafore dress as before, but dyed black, though Ben can still see the stripes.
    The food smell makes his belly twist something awful. And that kitchen! Gaslights and an indoor tap, and piles of stewpans that’d keep a tinker happy for a year. Stony broke, my arse.
    Him and Robbie go in, and Sophie gives them this big grin like they’re long lost friends. ‘Maddy, look ! It’s Ben and Robbie!’
    Madeleine shoots Ben a cool look and tells him to shut the door, and Sophie asks her sister if she can show them the morning-room. ‘There’s a stained-glass window which Maddy detests as it reminds her of Jamaica, but I think it’s stupendous, like in a church.’
    Ben’s never been in a church, so he takes her word for it.
    ‘No,’ says Madeleine over her shoulder, ‘they’re to stay down here or they’ll steal things.’
    Ben flashes a grin. ‘Now you’re learning.’
    Robbie’s gawping at Sophie, and she asks to see Dog, and they fall to chattering, or Sophie does – though she keeps darting little glances at Ben.
    He stays by the door. Says to Madeleine, ‘I heard your old man went all to smash.’
    ‘He was our cousin,’ she goes, still stirring. ‘After he died we learned that he’d been embezzling from the bank where he was a director.’ She says it matter-of-fact, like she’s not too surprised.
    Sophie pipes up. ‘Cousin Lettice is in a state of collapse , and has taken to her room.’
    ‘Cousin Lettice’, mutters Madeleine,