The Hyde Park Headsman (14 page)

The only flicker Charlotte could see that indicated she had even heard her father-in-law was a slow movement of her pale hand against her black skirt where she reached to clasp Bart Mitchell’s stronger, larger hand, and held it.

His face too was beyond Charlotte’s skill to read. His eyes were very blue and clear on Lord Winthrop’s, but there was no softness in them at all, and certainly nothing that could be taken for grief. His hand still held Mina’s.

Then another very different woman caught Charlotte’s eye; her smooth fair hair shone in the light and the expression on her handsome face was one of rapt attention. Lord Winthrop could not have desired a more admiring audience, or one who seemed more totally at one with him.

“Who is she?” Charlotte whispered to Emily.

“I’ve no idea,” Emily whispered back. “I saw her with the widow earlier on and they seemed very affectionate and definitely quite familiar. I suppose she is a family friend.”

“She doesn’t seem to share the widow’s emotions, or lack of them.”

“Maybe she was fonder of him than the widow,” Emily suggested. “Perhaps she is what you are looking for. Or at least what Thomas is looking for?”

“A mistress?”

“Ssh!” A thin woman in front of them turned around and glared.

Emily lifted one shoulder a little and stared back, eyebrows raised.

The woman snorted. “Some people have no idea how to behave!” she said loudly enough for Charlotte and Emily to hear.

“Ssh!” hissed a woman a little to the left of her.

“Well!” the thin woman gasped, filled with outrage.

Lord Winthrop finally wound to a close, and footmen began to pass among the guests again, carrying trays of glasses filled with Madeira wine, heavy and sweet. Others came with glasses of white wine for the ladies, or lemonade for those who preferred it.

Emily pulled a face and took white wine. Charlotte hesitated, then chose lemonade. This might call for a clear head. It was certainly not an occasion for enjoyment!

“I must meet the woman with the fair hair,” Charlotte said seriously. “How can we contrive it?”

“I can’t think of a decorous manner,” Emily replied. “I could simply be blunt.”

“In what way?”

Rather than explain, and give Charlotte a chance to refuse, Emily demonstrated exactly what she meant. Excusing herself to pass a group of sober men remembering their days at sea, and what they did or did not recall of Oakley Winthrop, she sailed towards Thora Garrick with Charlotte a yard behind.

“Mrs. Waters!” she exclaimed with delight. “I was so hoping we should have the chance to meet again, although not in these circumstances, of course! How are you?”

Thora looked startled. She regarded Emily with alarm, then, seeing her smiling face and bright eyes, it changed to confusion.

“I am afraid you are mistaken. My name is Garrick. My husband was the late Samuel Garrick, lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Navy. You may have heard of him?”

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry.” Emily apologized profusely. “What a dreadful mistake to have made. Really, I fear my eyesight must be quite at fault. Now that I am closer, I can see that you are not she at all.” She dismissed it with an airy wave. “Indeed, she is shorter and much older than you are, although of course she would not thank me for saying so, so I hope you will never repeat it? It is just that she also has that wonderful coloring.”

Thora blushed with pleasure and uncertainty.

“Do forgive me, Mrs. Garrick?” Emily begged, clasping Charlotte’s arm. “Do you know my sister, Charlotte Pitt? No, of course you don’t, or she would have prevented me from making such a ridiculous mistake.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt,” Thora said nervously.

“Oh—of course, if you are not Mrs. Waters, then you do not know me either,” Emily exclaimed. “I am Emily Radley. I am so delighted to make your acquaintance—that is if you will consider me an acquaintance?”

“Of course. I am very happy to.” Thora gave the only possible answer.

Emily smiled radiantly. “How generous of you! Especially at a moment of grief. Did you know poor Captain Winthrop well? Or is it indelicate to inquire?”

“No, of course not,” Thora denied. “Although I have known him a long time. He served with my dear husband, who was a most outstanding man, not at all unlike poor Captain Winthrop. They both excelled in all manner of fields of endeavor, of the body and of the mind. They both had such a sense of duty, of purpose. Do you know what I mean?”

“Oh, of course,” Emily said quickly. “Some men are immovable from the course of what is right, no matter what temptations are set in their path.”

Thora’s face lit with an inner radiance.

“Exactly! You know it precisely,” she agreed. “One has to be immovable at sea. Mistakes can cost lives. My dear Samuel was always saying that. He would have everything done just so, to the inch and to the minute. Dear Captain Winthrop was the same. I do so admire command in a man, don’t you? Where would the world be if we were all haphazard, depending upon intuition and hoping for the best, as I am afraid I am inclined to do too much of the time.”

“Artists, I expect,” Emily replied with a tiny frown. “And terribly unreliable. I imagine you were very fond of Captain Winthrop, then, if he had so many fine qualities in common with your late husband?”

“I had the highest regard for him,” Thora agreed warmly, but there was the slightest shadow of guilt in her answer. “In fact he was my son’s godfather, you know?” She smiled and turned to her left to indicate a young man with the same fair hair as herself, but the superficial resemblance in feature was almost negated by the difference in expression. The visionary delicacy in her was a serene certainty, as if she could see beyond the masks of the present to some greater truth whose beauty she believed utterly. In him there was still a searching, the pain of guilt and disillusion were marked in his eyes and his lips. He was someone far from the haven of knowledge in which she rested At the moment he was settling himself in a
small cleared area with a cello held lovingly in one hand, his bow in the other. “That is he,” Thora said quietly.

“Is he going to play?” Charlotte asked with interest. It seemed so far from the picture of a stiff, dogmatic naval officer which she had had well in her mind.

“Mina Winthrop asked him to,” Thora agreed. “He does play very well, but I think perhaps she asked him because he was so fond of her, and I know it eased the sadness of this whole affair for him that he should be able to contribute in some way.”

“How thoughtful of her,” Emily agreed. “It is remarkable at such a time for her to show so much sensitivity to the feelings of someone else. I do admire that”

“So do I,” Charlotte agreed. “I have barely met her, and yet I feel most warmly towards her.”

“I must introduce you more properly,” Thora said quickly. “After the music …” She stopped as a hush fell over the room and everyone turned towards Victor, perhaps more from courtesy than a real desire to listen. However, when he put the bow to the strings and drew it across, a shudder seemed to pass through the air, and a sound of such aching loneliness, that what had begun as good manners simply became total absorption. He did not play from a sheet of music but from memory, and seemed to draw it from the depths of some awful bereavement of his own.

Charlotte looked at the widow and saw a smile touch her lips as she watched him play. It was a heartrending piece, and yet it did not draw tears from her so much as a calm gratitude. Perhaps she had already wept all she could. Or on the other hand, maybe she was still numbed from the shock of her loss, and its manner.

Lord Winthrop stood very pale-faced and seemed to be keeping his emotions in check with difficulty. Lady Winthrop tried and failed. The tears filled her eyes and spilled over. One or two women moved a little closer as if to protect her, or give her some kind of support by sheer physical nearness.

Thora Garrick, next to Charlotte, stood very straight, her face shining with pride as if it were a military funeral. He might have been playing the Last Post, rather than a lyrical lament in solo voice.

“He is very gifted,” Charlotte said when the last note died away. “He plays with true inspiration.”

“I admit I have never heard him play so well before,” Thora
said with some surprise. “Although I suppose what I often hear is simply practice. But he was very close to poor Captain Winthrop. Oakley was so like his own dear father, who passed away in the line of duty several years ago.” Her voice was thick with emotion and her gaze was fixed far away.

“Poor Victor was only seventeen. It is terrible for a boy to grow up without a father, Mrs. Pitt.” She shook her head slightly, frowning. “A terrible thing. The power of example is so great, do you not think? And with all the devotion in the world, a mother cannot give that to a boy. The manliness, the honor, selfless dedication to duty, above all the self-mastery.”

Charlotte had not thought of it in that light. She had had no brothers, and her son, Daniel, was too young to think of such qualities.

Thora did not seem to require an answer. “Poor Oakley gave him that, as much as he could. He was always encouraging him, telling him stories of the navy, and of course he would have given him every assistance to obtain a commission, had Victor been willing.” A shadow of hurt and annoyance passed over her face.

“You must have been very fond of Captain Winthrop,” Charlotte murmured.

“Oh, indeed,” Thora said frankly. “I could hardly help it, he was so like my poor Samuel in all his qualities. A woman has to admire such men, don’t you think? And count herself fortunate to have obtained the esteem of two in her life. And Samuel was so devoted to us. I have to remind Victor of that, or I fear in time he will forget.”

In anyone else Charlotte might have taken Thora’s remarks to mean that her relationship with both men had been of a similar nature, but there was such fervid innocence in her eyes she could not believe it to be more than an idealistic admiration.

But did Mina Winthrop know that? Or was it conceivable she mistook this ardent emotion for love? Was she, beneath that cool, fragile exterior, a jealous woman? And what about her brother? Charlotte looked across the room searching for Bart Mitchell. It took only a moment to find him, standing alone almost in the shadows of one of the great pillars which supported a small minstrel gallery at the side of the room. His eyes were unwavering, and as well as she could judge, following the line of his vision, it was Thora Garrick at whom he was staring.

Was she mistaken in reading it as innocence? Had that
heady admiration been too intoxicating for Captain Winthrop’s vanity to resist? And had Bart Mitchell seen it?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Thora Garrick touching her very lightly on the arm. “Now I must introduce you to Mina,” she said quietly in the flutter of applause as Victor ceased playing a second piece. “I am sure you will find her most charming. So totally unselfish, you know.”

And indeed Mina was very gracious, and seemed genuinely pleased to meet Charlotte in a less perfunctory fashion than their previous introduction. After only a few moments they were talking intently about furnishings and decor, a subject in which Mina seemed to have a considerable knowledge.

It was half an hour later, when they had partaken of the excellent food which loaded the heavy oak table and sideboard, that Charlotte rejoined Emily.

“Have you learned anything?” Emily asked immediately. “Of value, I mean.”

“I don’t think so,” Charlotte replied. “More a matter of impressions. I could not help liking Mina Winthrop.”

“Being likable, unfortunately, does not make one innocent,” Emily replied. “And some of the most insufferably tedious people, full of humbug, can be as pure as the day. At least of the crime in which one is interested. Of course they may indirectly have brought about all sorts of disasters …”

“I am not begging the issues of guilt and innocence,” Charlotte responded. “Fascinating though they are. And I know perfectly well that she might be guilty, at least vicariously, through a lover. Oakley Winthrop sounds the sort of man from whom one might well have needed a little relief. Something of a hero, according to Mrs. Garrick.” She moved aside to allow an elderly lady to pass, leaning heavily on her husband’s arm. “Her eyes shine when she mentions his name,” she continued. “Although always in conjunction with her dead husband and the fact that Captain Winthrop stood in for him where Victor is concerned. Doesn’t he play the cello beautifully? I can’t see him striding the quarterdeck shouting commands, can you?”

“If he commanded anything at all, I imagine it would be a musical quartet,” Emily replied. “I don’t think we have accomplished much.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Really, I find Mr. Uttley completely odious. He is so certain of himself. I wish I knew a nice juicy piece of scandal about him, something really delicious which people would laugh about and repeat to everyone else.”

“Well just don’t you be the one to do it,” Charlotte warned with alarm. “It will rebound on you!”

“I know. I know. But it is an awful shame. Now if it were Mr. Hurlwood, I know a lovely piece about him, although of course I have no idea if it is true!”

“Is that important? Since he is not running against Jack?”

“No of course it isn’t, but apparently he has a mistress.”

“How very ordinary,” Charlotte said with disgust. “In fact it’s perfectly tame. He is a very striking-looking man. I am not at all surprised. Do you suppose his wife would be surprised if she knew?”

“She died a short while ago,” Emily replied with certainty. “I suppose it’s not very interesting really.”

“What is Mr. Uttley’s wife like?”

“Really quite nice, in a sort of a way,” Emily conceded grudgingly. “I suppose …”

“Be careful, Emily.” Charlotte became serious. “Jack refused the Inner Circle once. They won’t forgive him for it. I expect Mr. Uttley knows about it. Unless I have everything completely mistaken, Mr. Uttley is a member and will use his influence to beat Jack in any way he can. Don’t do anything to give him a weapon with which to wound you.”

“I won’t,” Emily said with equal gravity. “And believe me, Charlotte, Jack is not the only one in danger. They have no love for the police either, except those of them who are in the Circle themselves. They will make things as difficult as they can for Thomas. And this Winthrop murder will not be solved quickly, I think. If it was someone who knew him, a personal enemy of a very terrible kind, then Thomas has a mighty task ahead of him, and no forgiveness from the public or the government, who cannot afford another embarrassment, and no help from anyone who is of the Inner Circle, because he is not one of them.”