Southampton Row (27 page)

“I am not at all sure that there is any way,” Pitt said before he considered the defeat implicit in the remark. “And you have given me most excellent hospitality. I shall not forget it.” He did not mention the jam, but he knew by the sudden brightness of Wray’s eyes, and the way he blushed, that he understood perfectly.

“Thank you,” Wray said with overwhelming emotion, and before he was overcome again, he turned and followed Mrs. Cavendish back towards the French doors and went inside after her.

Pitt walked through the flowers to the gate, and out into Udney Road.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

The air blowing down off the moor was sweet, barely stirring the leaves of the apple tree in the cottage garden, and the silence and darkness were unbroken. It ought to have been a perfect night for deep, untroubled sleep. But Charlotte lay awake, aware of her loneliness, ears straining as if expecting to hear a sound, a footfall somewhere, a loose stone disturbed on the track beyond the gate, perhaps wheels, or more likely simply a horse’s hoof striking a sudden hard surface.

When at last she did hear it, the reality shot through her blood like fire. She threw back the bedcovers and stumbled the mere three steps to the window, and peered out. In the starlight there was nothing but a variance of depth in the shadows. Anyone could have been there, and she would not have seen.

She stayed until her eyes ached, but there was no movement, just another slight sound, no more than a rustle. A fox? A stray cat, or a night hunting bird? She had seen an owl at dusk yesterday evening.

She crept back to bed, but still lay awake, waiting.

Emily also found it hard to sleep, but it was guilt that disturbed her, and a decision she did not want to make but knew now was inevitable. Of all the possibilities she had considered for the fear that haunted Rose, insanity had never been among them. She had thought of an unfortunate romance before Aubrey, or even after, possibly a lost child, someone in her family with whom she had quarreled and who had died before she had had the chance to repair the rift. Not once had she imagined something as terrible as madness.

She could not commit herself to telling Pitt, and yet in her heart she knew she had to, she was just not prepared yet to admit it to herself. She still wanted to believe that somehow she would be able to protect Rose from . . . what? Injustice? Judgment that knew only some of the facts? The truth?

She toyed with the idea of going to Pitt in the morning, an hour or so after breakfast, when she had had time to compose herself, think exactly what she was going to say and how to word it.

But honesty compelled her to acknowledge that if she waited, then Pitt would almost certainly have left the house, and she was only thinking of doing it so she could pretend to herself that she had tried, when in actuality she had quite deliberately gone when she knew it was too late.

So she rose at six, when her maid brought her the requested cup of hot tea, which made her feel rather more like facing the day. She dressed and was out of the house by half past seven. Once you have made up your mind to do something that you know will be difficult and unpleasant, it is better to do it immediately, before too much thinking of it can fill your mind with the fears of all that can hurt and go wrong.

Pitt was startled to see her. He stood in the doorway in Keppel Street in shirtsleeves and stocking feet, his hair untidy as ever. “Emily!” His concern was instant. “Has something happened? Are you all right?”

“Yes, something has happened,” she replied. “And I am not sure whether I will be all right or not.”

He stood aside, inviting her in, allowing her to lead the way to the kitchen. She sat down on one of the hard-backed chairs, sparing only a glance at the familiar surroundings, so subtly different without either Charlotte or Gracie there. The room had a vaguely unused feel, as if only the necessities were being done, no baking of cakes, no smell of richness or warmth, too little linen on the airing rail strung up to the ceiling. Only Archie and Angus, stretching themselves awake on the hearth of the cooking range, looking totally comfortable.

“Tea?” Pitt asked, indicating the pot on the table and the kettle whistling gently on the back of the hob. “Toast?”

“No, thank you,” she declined.

He sat down, ignoring his own half-finished drink. “What is it?”

She had passed the point of changing her mind . . . well, almost. There was still time to say something else. He was looking at her, waiting. Perhaps he would draw it out of her whether she wanted him to or not. If she hesitated long enough he might do that, and relieve her of the guilt.

Except that was a lie to herself. She was here. At least do what needed doing with some integrity! She raised her eyes and stared at him. “I saw Rose Serracold yesterday evening and talked with her as if we were alone. It can be like that sometimes at a big party, find yourself sort of . . . islanded in noise, so no one overhears you. I bullied her into telling me why she went to Maude Lamont.” She stopped, remembering how she had forced Rose into an emotional corner.
Bullied
was the right word.

Pitt waited without prompting her.

“She is afraid her father died insane—“ She stopped abruptly, seeing Pitt’s amazement, and then instant horror. “She is terrified that she might have inherited the same taint in the blood,” she went on quietly, as if whispering could lessen the pain of it. “She wanted to ask her mother’s spirit if it was true, if he really was mad. But she didn’t have the chance. Maude Lamont was killed too soon.”

“I see.” He sat staring at her without moving. “We can ask General Kingsley to confirm that at least she had not contacted her mother by the time she left.”

She was startled. “You think she might have gone back afterwards and had a private séance?”

“Someone went back, whatever for,” he pointed out.

“Not Rose!” she said with more conviction than she felt. “She wanted her alive!” She leaned forward across the table. “She’s still so afraid she can hardly keep control of herself, Thomas. She doesn’t know yet! She’s hunting for another medium so she can go on searching.”

The kettle shrilled more insistently on the hob, and he ignored it. “Or Maude Lamont told her something she doesn’t want to believe,” he said gently. “And she is terrified that it will be discovered.”

She looked at him, wishing he did not understand her so well, read in her the racing thoughts she would so much rather have concealed. And yet if she could dupe him that would not be any comfort, either. She had always believed that her own skill with people was her greatest asset. She could charm and beguile and so often make people do what she wished them to without their even being aware that what they embraced so eagerly was actually her idea.

And the use of it left her oddly dissatisfied. She had realized that more and more lately. She did not want to see further than Jack could, or be stronger or cleverer than he was. Ahead was a very lonely place. One had to take the burden sometimes, it was part of love, part of responsibility—but only sometimes, not always. And it was a pleasure only because it was right, fair, an act of giving, not because it afforded any comfort to oneself.

So while she resented Pitt’s pressure on her to tell him more than she wished to, she also felt a sense of comfort that she could not fob him off with half an answer. She needed him to be cleverer than she was, because she had not the power to help Rose, or even to be certain what help would be. She might only make it worse. She realized now that she was not absolutely sure that Rose was not touched with the edge of madness, and could in her panic have thought Maude Lamont knew her secret and would endanger her, and then Aubrey. She remembered how quickly Rose had turned on her when she was afraid. Friendship had vanished like water dropped on the hot surface of a griddle, evaporated before her sight.

“She swore she did not kill her,” she said aloud.

“And you want to believe her,” Pitt finished the unsaid thought. He stood up and went to the stove, moving the kettle off the heat. He turned back to face her. “I hope you are right. But somebody did. I don’t want it to be General Kingsley, either.”

“The anonymous person,” Emily concluded. “You still don’t know who he was . . . do you?”

“No.”

She looked at him. Something was closed and hurt in his eyes. He was not lying. She had never known him to do that. But there was a world of feeling and of fact that he was not willing to tell her.

“Thank you, Emily,” he said, coming back to the table. “Did she say if anyone else knew of this fear? Does Aubrey know?”

“No.” She was quite certain. “Aubrey doesn’t know, and if you are thinking Maude Lamont blackmailed her, I don’t think so.” She was aware of a sudden lurch of anxiety as she said it, and that it was only partially true. Could Pitt see that in her face?

He gave a slight shrug. “Perhaps Maude Lamont didn’t know yet,” he said dryly. “Someone may have affected a very lucky escape for Rose.”

“Aubrey doesn’t know, Thomas! He really doesn’t!”

“Probably not.”

He walked with her to the front door, collecting his jacket on the way, and outside he accepted a lift in her carriage as far as Oxford Street, where she turned west to go back home. He went south towards the War Office, to again search its records for whatever it was that had forced General Kingsley to attack the political party whose values he had always believed. Surely it had to have some connection with the death of his son or some action shortly before it.

He had been there over an hour, reading one report after another, when he realized that he still had no flavor of the man, no sense of anything other than a torrent of formal, fleshless words. It was like seeing the skeleton of a man and trying to imagine the look of his face, his voice, his laughter, the way he moved. There was nothing here. Whatever it had been was covered over. He could read this all day and learn nothing.

He copied out the names of most of the other officers and men who had been at Mfolozi to see if any of them were here in London, and perhaps willing to tell him more than this. Then he thanked the clerk and left.

He had already given the cabbie the address of the first man on the list when he changed his mind, and gave Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould’s address instead. Perhaps it was an impertinence to call on her uninvited, but he had never found her unwilling to help in any cause in which she believed. And after Whitechapel, where they had shared not only the battle itself but a depth of emotion, a fear and a loss, and a victory at terrible price, there was a bond between them unlike any other.

Therefore it was with confidence that he presented himself at the front door of her house and told the maid who answered it that he wished to speak with Lady Vespasia on a matter of some urgency. He would await her convenience, however long that might be.

He was left in the morning room, but it proved to be only for a matter of minutes, then he was shown into her sitting room, which faced onto the garden and always seemed to be full of peace and a soft light, whatever the season or the weather.

She was wearing a shade of clover pink, so subtle it was hardly pink at all, and the usual pearls around her neck. She smiled to greet him, and held out her hand very slightly, not for him to take, merely as a gesture that he should come in.

“Good morning, Thomas. How pleasant to see you.” Her eyes searched his face. “I have been half expecting you ever since Emily called. Or perhaps ‘half hoping’ would be more accurate. Voisey is standing for Parliament.” She could not even say his name without the emotion thickening her voice. She had to be remembering Mario Corena, and the sacrifice which had cost Voisey so dearly.

“Yes, I know,” he said softly. He wished he could have spared her being aware of it, but she had never evaded anything in her life, and to protect her now would surely be the ultimate insult. “That is why I am here in London rather than with Charlotte in the country.”

“I am glad she is away.” Her face was bleak. “But what is it you believe you can do, Thomas? I don’t know much about Victor Narraway. I have asked, but either the people I spoke to know little themselves or they are not prepared to tell me.” She looked at him steadily. “Be very careful that you do not trust him more than is wise. Don’t assume that he has the concern for you, or the loyalty, that Captain Cornwallis had. He is not a straightforward man—”

“Do you know that?” Pitt said, cutting across her unintentionally.

She smiled very slightly, a gesture that barely moved her lips. “My dear Thomas, Special Branch is designed and created to catch anarchists, bombers, all kinds of men, and I suppose a few women, who plan in secret to overthrow our government. Some of them intend to replace it with another of their own choosing, others simply wish to destroy without the slightest idea what will follow. Some, of course, have loyalties to other countries. Can you imagine John Cornwallis organizing a force to prevent them before they succeed?”

“No,” Pitt admitted with a sigh. “He is brave and profoundly honest. He would expect to see the whites of their eyes before he would shoot.”

“He would invite them to surrender,” she amended. “Special Branch requires a devious man, subtle, full of imagination, a man seen only in the shadows, and never by the public. Do not forget that.”

Pitt was cold, even in the sun. “I think General Kingsley was being blackmailed by Maude Lamont, at least on the surface it was by her.”

“For money?” She was surprised.

“Possibly, but I think more likely to attack Aubrey Serracold in the newspapers, sensing his inexperience and the probability that he would react badly, damaging himself further.”

“Oh dear.” She shook her head very slightly.

“One of them killed her,” he continued. “Rose Serracold, General Kingsley, or the man denoted in her diary by a cartouche, a little drawing rather like a reversed small
f
with a semicircle over the top of it.”

“How curious. And have you any idea who he may be?”

“Superintendent Wetron believes he is an elderly professor of theology who lives in Teddington.”

Her eyes widened. “Why? That seems a very perverse thing for a religious man to do. Was he seeking to expose her as a fraud?”

“I don’t know. But I . . .” He hesitated, not sure how to explain either his feelings or his actions. “I really don’t believe it was he, but I am not certain. He recently lost his wife and is deeply grieved. He has a passion against spirit mediums. He believes they are evil, and acting contrary to the commandments of God.”

“And you are afraid that this man, deranged by his grief, may have taken it into his head to finish her intervention permanently?” she concluded. “Oh, Thomas, my dear, you are too softhearted for your profession. Sometimes very good men can make the most terrible mistakes, and bring untold misery while convinced they are bent upon the work of God. Not all the inquisitors of Spain were cruel or narrow-minded men, you know. Some truly believed they were saving the souls of those in their charge. They would be astounded if they knew how we perceived them now.” She shook her head. “Sometimes we see the world so differently from each other you would swear we could not possibly be speaking of the same existence. Have you never asked half a dozen witnesses to an event in the street, even the description of a person, and received such conflicting answers, told in all sincerity, that they cancel each other out entirely?”