Authors: Kim Wright
“True, true, all true enough,” said Trevor. He knew that tomorrow morning, at the moment when Leanna Bainbridge became Leanna Harrowman, there would still be a pang in his chest, but he appreciated his friends for trying to make him feel better about it. He turned slowly, his shoes crunching against the pebbles as he took in the estate from all directions. But it was a futile exercise. North, east, south, and west, the view was all the same – green grass, stone walls, softly undulating hills punctuated with the occasional sheep.
“True enough,” he said again, this time with more conviction. “It’s all quite perfect to the eye, is it not? The whole scene seems designed for human happiness – or perhaps even that more elusive thing they call peace. But I would never have found my purpose here.”
***
Rosemoral - Leanna’s Bedroom
12:5
0 PM
Leanna emerged from behind her dressing screen with Emma close behind her, picking at the folds of her voluminous white silk skirt. Leanna swirled and then looked at the three women seated before her expectantly.
“Flawless,” said her mother Gwynette.
“Exquisite,” said her future sister-in-law Hannah.
“Glorious,” said her Great-Aunt Geraldine, who then promptly surprised them all by reaching for a hankie to dab away tears. It was not odd that she would show emotion, for Geraldine Bainbridge was a fiercely passionate woman - an enthusiastic patron of a variety of causes and given to exaggeration, gossip, and verbosity by nature. But it was surprising beyond measure that she would be moved to tears by the sight of a girl in a wedding gown. Geraldine had not only managed to reach the age of sixty-seven without ever having been, in her words, “netted and mounted,” but had been known to write vehemently feminist letters to the editor of the London Star, the most famous of which had compared marriage to slavery.
“Darling Auntie,” said Leanna, dipping to give Geraldine a hug. “None of this would even be happening if weren’t for you. If I’d never come to London, I never would have met John, and who knows what would have become of me then?”
Seeing as how you are both wildly beautiful and wildly rich,
Emma thought drily,
what most likely would have become of you is that you would have married someone else. Probably not someone with the elevated social consciousness of Saint John Harrowman, but no doubt another man who was equally handsome, charming, and aristocratic. For you are, without question, the single luckiest human being I have ever known.
But of course she did not say these words out loud. Despite the oceanic gap between their status in the world, Emma was genuinely fond of Leanna and supposed, against all odds, that they might even be called each other’s best friend. Best female friend, at least. They were both women who had found themselves surrounded by men – Leanna through the fluke of having been born with three brothers and Emma through her unlikely position as the linguistics expert on the Scotland Yard forensics team. Under the circumstances, they were gratified to have befriended each other at all, and Leanna now turned towards Emma, her pale eyebrows lifted in question.
“You are the most beautiful bride I have ever seen,” Emma promptly confirmed. “And John will no doubt be the most handsome groom and the wedding tomorrow shall be so unrelentingly perfect that we shall all be struck deaf, dumb, and blind simply by having witnessed the experience.”
“Good,” said Leanna decisively, turning to consider her reflection in the mirror. “For that was precisely the effect I wished to achieve. In fact, if a single guest leaves the church tomorrow in full possession of his senses, I shall count myself a failed bride.”
“Do you want to put on the veil?” Emma asked. “For it sets the gown off to perfection.”
Just then there was a rap at the door and one of the maids entered, bearing what appeared to be a letter on a silver tray. The tray was large and obviously heavy and she advanced toward them with a slow and measured step. Enough ceremony to still the chatter of the room. Emma wondered if such rigmarole was typical at Rosemoral or if the staff was putting on special airs in honor of the wedding.
“Just came for you, Miss,” said the girl.
“Thank you, Tillie,” Leanna said. She took the letter in both hands and considered it with a quizzical frown. “To the Bride of Rosemoral,” she read. “Heavens, that’s rather prosaic, is it not?”
“And look at that envelope,” Emma said, peering over her shoulder at the crinkled, honey-colored paper and the explosion of different colored stamps haphazardly crammed into the right hand corner. “It appears to have come through the wars.”
“Little wonder, it’s from India,” Leanna said slowly, squinting at the spidery handwriting on the front of the envelope. “Mother, do we know anyone who is stationed in India?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Gwynette said. “Geraldine, are there any old family friends who might –“
“Read it,” Geraldine said.
The order, so plainly stated and thus so unlike its speaker, seemed to stun them all. Leanna tore at the envelope and extracted a single sheet of paper, as thin and yellowed as its sheath, and, with a small intake of breath, began to read.
My darling. I have no right to call you that or to ask you now for help. I have no right to ask you for anything at all, as we both well know. But I find myself in a spot of trouble and you’re the only person I can think to turn to in my hour of need.
It’s Rose,
as if you haven’t already guessed. They say I’ve gone and killed her.
“That’s it?” Gwynette said. “It isn’t signed?”
Leanna shook her head. She had gone a little pale.
“How extraordinarily odd,” Hannah said, leaning forward, a frown settling across her heavy features. “Gone and killed her, he says? The letter must have been delivered here by mistake.”
“I don’t see how,” Leanna said. “We’re the only Rosemoral in all of England.”
“Is there a date?” Geraldine asked. Her voice was so devoid of inflection that it sounded barely human and Emma looked at her with alarm. Experience had taught her that Geraldine shrieked and railed over mice caught in traps, oversalted soups, and typhoons swarming countries so far-flung that most of the citizens of London couldn’t have found them on a map. If Geraldine was calm, then the situation must be very bad indeed.
Leanna turned over the envelope. “August 9,” she said slowly. “Posted a full week ago. Do you know the meaning of this, Aunt Gerry? Who might have sent me such a strange letter?”
“No one, darling,” Geraldine said. “That letter is meant for me.”
Chap
ter Two
Rosemoral
- Dining Hall
August 17
10:12 PM
Thirty-two hours later, with the newlyweds happily dispatched on a honeymoon tour of Italy, the Thursday Night Murder Games Club convened to discuss the remarkable matter of Geraldine’s Indian letter.
It was not a Thursday night, of course. Nor were they ensconced in their normal location, Geraldine’s opulent dining room in London. But the tables and chairs of Rosemoral would serve just as well, and, thanks to the hospitality of the bridal family, good food and fine wine seemed to flow as steadily in the country as in the city.
Wealth blurs certain distinctions
, Trevor thought, leaning back in his seat to better survey the pleasant scene before him.
The prosperous can be cool in the summer and warm in the winter; they bring gardens into the city and fine cuisine into the country. Reality is not the stumbling block for the rich that it seems to be for lesser mortals, but merely something to be managed. A clever hostess with ample funds at her disposal can easily transport her guests into any time and place that she wishes.
Gwynette, William, and Hannah had departed the table, along with the handful of houseguests who had remained after the wedding. The servants had likewise made their tactful retreat, leaving only the Murder Club: Trevor, Rayley, Davy, Tom, Emma, and, of course, Geraldine. Normally nonchalant in all social situations, she seemed unusually anxious tonight. Trevor had noticed that her napkin lay twisted beside her plate and her wine glass was untouched.
“Perhaps we should start by asking you to tell us,” he said gently, “the basics of your history with the man who wrote the letter. This Anthony Weaver.”
Geraldine had surely anticipated the question. Had surely been mulling the matter all day. And yet she hesitated, her eyes narrowing as she focused on the copse of candles clustered in the center of the table, their light flickering low with the lateness of the hour.
“I met him on a ship,” she finally said. “A ship bound for India. It was 1856 and so I was…I suppose I must have been just at thirty-five years old.”
This information, brief as it was, seemed to trigger a response in each person seated at the table. But it was the date of the voyage that intrigued Trevor, and a quick glance at Rayley confirmed that his fellow detective had also noted its significance.
1856 was the year before the Great Mutiny.
“They called us the fishing fleet,” Geraldine went on, with a shaky and mirthless laugh. “For if you were a woman who had passed marriageable age and your prospects in England had grown limited, then they promptly packed you off to India. The men there outnumbered the women ten to one and it was said that even the ugliest and most disagreeable of females could easily catch a husband among the officers of the Raj.”
“You traveled halfway around the world looking for a husband?” Emma said, the disbelief in her voice echoing the thoughts of them all.
“Of course not,” Geraldine said sharply, and for the first time all evening she reached for her wine glass. “Marriage is a trap, especially for women, and most especially for a woman like me. But I wanted to see India. It was the grand adventure of my generation, and although my parents were quite tolerant for their time, even they would not allow their daughter to sail, as you say, halfway around the world to merely ride elephants and study Hinduism.” Geraldine’s mouth narrowed into a bitter little smile. “But they had every confidence in the fishing fleet, which had been designed for the transport of upper and middle class white women. The fleet promised safe passage, or at least as safe as that era allowed, and a host of acceptable chaperones. Far more than any of us would have liked, as it turned out.”
“And what was Anthony Weaver doing on such a ship?” Rayley asked.
“There were three types of passengers on board the
Weeping Susan
,” Geraldine said, leaning back. “We spinsters, of course. Dreadful word. And our chaperones, who were in many cases our age or even younger. You can imagine how that rankled. The chaperones were most frequently the wives of officers in the Raj, who lived in constant rotation between their duties to their husbands in India and the comforts of England. Those comforts in many cases included proximity to their children, who had most likely been sent home to boarding schools by the time they were six. No civilized person would attempt to educate a British child in India.”
Geraldine sighed before continuing. “It is only in retrospect that I see how hard it must have been for the women. At the time it seemed as if marriage to an officer would be a madly exciting existence, certainly offering more variety and freedom than most wives enjoy. But through the years I have thought back on how they must have felt constantly torn between two places, ill at ease and guilty no matter where they happened to be. And ever in transit as well. For the journey was no easy matter in the fifties, before the canal on the Suez opened and steamers came widely into service. We sailed on clippers, if you can feature it, all around the base of Africa through the Cape of Good Hope. Passage took six weeks if luck was with you. Longer if the wind died.”
“Six weeks?” Tom said in horror. “Even the grandest of adventures tend to wear thin after two.”
“Indeed,” said Geraldine, smiling at her grand-nephew. “My point exactly.”
“You said there were three categories of passengers sailing,” Trevor reminded her. “Yet you only spoke of the spinsters and their chaperones.”
“The third group was a handful of British officers,” Geraldine said. “Reporting to their posts, returning home again, going back and forth on leave. Anthony, in fact, was traveling to rejoin his regiment in Bombay.”
“Six weeks is a long time for a party of strangers to be cooped up together in tight quarters,” Tom said. “I imagine the ship would come to seem like a world unto itself. Quite apart from your real lives, wherever they lay, with all sorts of romances, feuds, and complications erupting among the passengers.”
“But the trip may also have offered an unaccustomed burst of freedom for everyone aboard,” Emma said, further expanding on Tom’s thought. “The men about to take up military posts, the married women in respite between their own demanding roles as wives and mothers. And the unmarried ones…most of them away from the restraints of their parents for the first time, I’d imagine.”
“You imagine quite correctly, both of you,” Geraldine said. Her eyes had taken on a dreamy look as she still gazed into the glow of the candles. “Life on board created the most dreadful ennui and claustrophobia, day after day all the same, and yet at times there were these moments of mad gaiety, for each of us was determined to seize her small pleasures wherever she could. A world into itself, just as Tom said. A world which we all knew would cease to exist the moment the ship reached the harbor of Bombay. And it was in this setting that I first came to know Anthony Weaver.”
“You said it was a six week transit if conditions were with you,” Emma said softly. “But on this particular voyage, I somehow suspect the winds died.”
“Oh my, yes,” said Geraldine, and her large gray eyes filled with tears. “Quite right again, my darling. On this particular voyage, the winds died.”
***
The Bombay Jail
6:14 AM
“I understand you requested a priest, Secretary-General?”
The old man had been dozing. He startled awake at the loud voice and, just as had been the case on each morning since he’d come to this dark and fetid hell-hole, for a slow moment he had wondered where he was. How had he come to be stranded here, on this narrow bench, with only a rough-ripped scrap of cloth stretched beneath him? With only a cup of flat water and bread of the most dubious origin to sustain body and soul?
Most of all, how had he lost his power? Enough so that this insolent pup standing before him, the sort of pimpled, snot-nosed boy he wouldn’t hire to shine his shoes, might feel free to talk to him in this manner?
“A priest?” the lad repeated, none too pleasantly.
The old man winced. Asked for a priest, indeed. He might have been brought low in these last days, but not so low that he’d accept Irish-bred comfort. He would rather die with his soul unclean than pour his sins into Catholic ears.
Struggling to contain his tremors and to push back the pounding in his head, he pushed himself to a sitting position and painfully twisted to better face the figure in the doorway. “There has to be some sort of military chaplain stationed nearby, does there not?” he said, with deliberate civility. For the first time in many years, he regretted his religious laxity. If he had attended services on a regular basis, he would have been able to ask for a suitable man by name.
“We can scrape up someone, I’d wager,” said the boy, with a wide grin that catalogued the collective failures of British dentistry. “’Case you’ve decided to confess, that is?”
Anthony Weaver - sixty-nine years of age and the former Secretary-General of the Presidency of Bombay Province, jailed for the murder of his wife and in the early stages of undiagnosed lung cancer – coughed and leaned back against the cracked plaster walls of his cell. The boy was right enough in his way, for Weaver did indeed have something to confess. Not to the crime he had been accused of now, not to killing Rose and her manservant , but to something else. Some long ago failing that had followed him, with the persistence of a shadow, for more than thirty years.
So send them all, he thought, coughing again as the boy in the doorway at last disappeared. Send the chaplain and the vicar and the priest and the swami too, and the blind man on the corner who says he can see into your heart and heal it for a dozen rupees. Send them to this cell to hear confession of a mistake which was made before most of them were born. Not that it mattered. If Anthony Weaver knew anything, it was this: That life and love and country and duty…that all of these things faded in time. They came and went with the impartial cruelty of the Indian sun.
But sin and sin alone is eternal.
***
Rosemoral - Dining Room
10:34
PM
“I fear I am being obscure,” Geraldine said, wiping her eyes. “Which is the very last thing I intended to be.”
“These are memories which have likely gone unspoken for some time,” Rayley said with sympathy, his own mind darting back to Paris and the extraordinarily ill-fated liaison he’d experienced there the past spring. How long would it be before he would speak of Isabel Blout, he wondered, and if he ever did, would he manage to tell the story in a sensible fashion?
Geraldine smiled at him. “Thank you, dear, but Trevor has asked me to stick to the basics, so I must start again.” She gave a great exhalation to steady her nerves. “I boarded a ship, having assured my gullible parents and even my far-from-gullible brother that I wished to find a suitable man and marry. I had a substantial inheritance and a decent bosom, one of which I luckily still retain. But despite these assets, I had never been particularly marriageable by English standards. I was forceful, perhaps too full of opinions and too certain I was right. The eligible men in my circle had demurred, each in his turn. And so, when a full fifteen years after my lavish debut I remained unattached, my family was easily persuaded I might try my chances on the subcontinent. They took me to the port of London and onto the ship I went.”
“And who was named your chaperone?” Trevor asked.
“Very good, my dear,” Geraldine said. “Your question is quite apt and proves why you are the leader of us all. See there, everyone. A single shot in the dark and Trevor has managed to hit the one fact that will advance our story. For I was entrusted, you see, to the care of a matron a few years above my own age, a woman named Rose Everlee who was returning to India to join her husband in Bombay. And as fate would have it, Anthony Weaver was the dashing second in command in that same unit. Roland Everlee’s lieutenant, in fact, and also his closest friend.” Geraldine paused and frowned. “I say all that as a matter of course, but was Anthony truly dashing? They always use that word with officers, so I suppose he must have been. Or at least dashing enough for me.”