“What happened here?” I asked, inquiring of the servant on her hands and knees, scrubbing the bottom of a white square pillar that stood between sections of the fence.

“Madam?” She looked down, seemingly afraid to speak to me.

“I’m Lady Emily Hargreaves, a friend of Polly’s,” I said. “Who did this?”

“It was a vandal of some sort, madam. We don’t know who. I’ve been at it for more hours than I can count, but it’s right near impossible to remove. They’ve sent someone off to get turpentine.”

“When did it happen?” I asked.

“It was like this when we woke up yesterday morning. Terrible thing, ’specially now. The missus doesn’t need any more trouble.”

“No, she certainly doesn’t,” I said. “Don’t let me distract you from your task.”

“Yes, madam.” She returned to her work, her face tense with effort.

We continued towards Lady Carlisle’s house in the bottom of the street. “This is dreadful,” Ivy said. “Poor Polly is all but ruined. And now this? It’s grotesquely unfair. Who would have done such a thing to her house?”

“I can’t imagine,” I said. “Isn’t it enough that the family have suffered such pain and humiliation? Why would someone want to draw further attention to their plight?”

We’d reached our destination. I looked up at Number One Palace Green. It was smaller than the other homes on the street and looked as if it had been built more recently, although its red bricks fronted a relatively plain façade. I pulled open the iron gate and felt a twinge of nerves as we walked up concrete steps to the narrow, arched entrance to the house. I felt as if I were on the precipice of something important, as if I were about to enter a world full of other people who shared values similar to my own, a place where I would not be ostracized for my intellectual interests and social radicalism. I took a deep breath and lifted my hand to knock on the door.