The Shadowcutter (47 page)

Lady Warde and her daughter had always taken the two rooms on the second floor. “Our best rooms,” she pointed out with pride. Compared to Mrs Peel’s house on the Esplanade, they were small and shabby and a great contrast to all the great houses she must have stayed at.

He conducted what he hoped was a thorough search, checking for loose boards and under the mattresses. There was nothing to catch his attention in the first room, and seemed to be nothing in the second, until he opened the press set so high up in the wall that he was obliged to stand on a chair to look into it properly. It contained a carpet bag, carefully closed with a leather strap upon the buckle of which was a padlock. The bag was not stuffed full, but it clearly contained something – it had some weight to it. He wondered if it had belonged to Lady Warde.

He went downstairs carrying it and found Mrs Carnbee at the front door, taking in the post.

“Nowt for me, today!” she said, coming upstairs to meet him by the parlour door. She held up the letters. “These are all for Mrs Edgar. Nobody ever writes to a poor old woman,” she added with a sigh.

“Is there anything there that might be from Mrs Abbot?” Felix said. It had occurred to him she might have ventured a letter from Sir Arthur’s house.

“This one? I think that’s her hand,” she said. “I see you found her bag. I remembered it when you went upstairs. I would have come up and told you, but then the postman came.”

He looked at the letter she held out to him. The hand was certainly that of Lady Warde.

“May I take this?”

“Aye, you’d better. She won’t like it, I dare say, but I think it’s for the best. If Mrs Abbot is as wicked as you say, sir –” She shook her head. “Now will you take a cup of tea? I have just made a pot.”

He could not find any adequate excuse to refuse her, finding that a strong, sweet cup of tea with cream in it was exactly what he wanted. She made him eat some bread and butter too, which was equally good.

“Let me read your leaves for you,” she said, when he had drained his cup. “My mother taught me, and she was considered quite the seer.”

He indulged her, realising he was in no hurry to get back to Sukey, for he had still not the slightest idea what he ought to say and do.

“Aha,” said the old woman, swirling round the dregs and smiling. “Trouble in love.”

It was, of course, very likely that most men of his age could happily agree with such a diagnosis. It was a platitude, a safe generality and he tried to throw it away with a smile.

“I thought as much,” she went on, turning the cup again, “Trouble in love and a vale of tears.” She looked up at him. “But it will all come right in the end, that’s clear enough.”

He repressed any unkind remarks about superstitious nonsense that he would have liked to have made, because she had been useful and kind. He thanked her and left.

He dawdled back to the Esplanade, by way of the Old Town wondering how on earth he could begin again with Sukey, and what could be said and done to make it right.

He found himself in a street of enticing shops and in the window of a jeweller a necklace of coral beads caught his eye. He went in and bought it and then went into the circulating library and put down her name as a subscriber. While he was there he snared a just-returned copy of the first volume of Ainsworth’s ‘Rookwood’.

Finally he made his way back to their lodgings.

She was sitting at the round table at the window, knitting. She had put on a high-necked white muslin dress he had never seen before, and arranged her hair in quite a new fashion. It was a scene that demanded to be painted. But a moment’s closer glance showed her eyes were still red from crying.

He put his little offerings down in front of her: the library ticket, the book and the parcel in blue paper.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

“Yes. Her carpet bag – and better than that – a letter asking for it to be sent to her.”

“Worth the journey, then,” she said and continued with her knitting.

He sat down by her and rested his elbows on his knees, and his chin on his knotted hands. He watched her knitting for some minutes before he spoke.

“These are for you,” he said. “The library looks a good one. I have got Ainsworth’s Rookwood. You haven’t read it?”

“No,” she said, putting down her work and picking up the book. She did not open it, but rather held it up in front of her, and turned it in her hands, as it were something curious.

“It’s very good,” he said.

“I’m sure,” she said putting it down. Then he pushed the parcel containing the necklace a little more towards her.

“And this,” he said. “To mark the day,” he managed to say.

She stared across at him.

“To mark the day?” she said.

“To mark the day,” he said again.

“To mark the day when I... when I...” She got up and wrapped her arms about her, walking to the other end of the room, turning pointedly away from him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, getting up. “How can that have been your fault – ?”

“Because this is all my fault!” she exclaimed. “All this!” She gestured about her. “James always said I was as good as a whore! And here I am, at the seaside, calling myself Mrs Carswell.” She marched back to the table and snatched up the parcel and unceremoniously ripped off the paper. She opened the case and saw the coral necklace lying there on the white satin, and then sighed and set it down on the table, without taking it out. “Oh, dear God –”

“They are just a trifle – to say I am sorry,” he said.

“Sorry for what?”

“For what happened. I read in a book that a man ought always to see to his wife’s pleasure first. And that women have passions, just as men do, that need expression. You said so yourself.”

“I am just...” she said, swallowing hard, “so frightened. Frightened of myself. Frightened that I will do something to make you hate me.”

He pulled her into his arms.

“How could I ever hate you?” he said. “And I am not like him. You know that.”

“I do,” she said, pressing herself against him. “I do! But sometimes he creeps about my mind and poisons everything. It’s like he is here sometimes, sitting in the corner watching us, mocking us. And sometimes I think he isn’t dead at all, and at any moment he will be back and insisting on his rights, and then telling me that I’m a whore for consenting to it.”

She broke off and buried her face into her chest, sobbing.

“He is rotting in Hell, Sukey, or worse, if there is any justice,” he said. “He can’t touch you now.”

She cried for some long minutes and with some violence, and then she collected herself and broke from his arms.

“I need to wash my face,” she said, and went through to the bedroom.

He followed her and watched her as she went to the washstand and poured out some water. His own cheeks were sticky with tears and he went to her side as she rinsed her face. He plunged his hand into the bowl, next to hers, catching her fingers. This made her smile a little.

“I am going to buy you a new ring,” he said, touching her wedding ring under the water. “Instead of that one.”

She took her hand out of the water and attempted to remove the ring. It proved obstinate even using soap, but at length she succeeded.

“There,” she said, tossing it back into the water. Then she laughed. “But I had better wear it for now. I can’t go down and eat my dinner here without it, can I?”

He did not much like the thought of that, but she had a point.

“It is just a piece of metal,” he said, taking it from the water. He took her hand and slipped it back onto her finger. “He’s dead. It doesn’t matter now. What matters now is that we are here.”

Chapter Forty-six

“A successful trip, then?” asked Major Vernon as they sat in the library after dinner. “And was it a distraction?”

Felix found it difficult to look Major Vernon in the eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “And my instincts were correct.”

There was no pleasure dissembling to him, but it had to be done.

Throughout dinner he felt his spirits had been low enough to give him the look of a man suffering from a disappointment in love. He felt her absence keenly and could not stop thinking of her standing alone on the breezy Esplanade where they had parted that morning. As he had taken one last kiss the wind had whipped about them as if meant to bind them forever. It had been such an effort to break away and turn his back on her.

Over the soup, Mrs Carswell artlessly remarked that she hoped Mrs Connolly had made a safe journey, and that there would be a letter soon. Major Vernon skilfully turned the conversation away and before long was asking her about her experiences of running a parish school for girls. Could such a model might be extended to industrial areas? It was a worthy subject, calculated to please both his parents, and one which required Felix to say absolutely nothing.

He was grateful, but it was uncomfortable to bear Major Vernon’s delicate sympathy at a necessary renunciation, when all he had done was conspire to do exactly the opposite of what he had advised.

Alone with him, it was worse. The taste of duplicity was bitter.

He tried to comfort himself with the memories of the previous night. After dinner, they had walked on the beach and then gone up to bed and been as man and wife. The difficulties of earlier that day had slipped away, like the tide pulling out of the bay below their windows. They had been passionate, intimate and yet careful. They had agreed on the last with little difficulty and few words, understanding each other in a way that Felix found as moving as the sight of her in only her shift with her hair loosened. They would not be fools.

“So what did you find?” Major Vernon asked.

It was a relief to turn to business. He was aching with longing.

“A letter,” Felix said, handing it to Major Vernon. “From Lady Warde alias Mrs Abbott, to Mrs Edgar marked from Market Craven. She asks that her carpet bag be sent care of Bertram’s Haberdashers, at Market Craven.”

“Really?” said Giles. “Good grief. I was only looking in their window the other day. And that is the bag?”

“Yes,” said Felix. “I could not get into it, though. I’ll leave that pleasure to you.”

“This could not better,” said Major Vernon, having finished reading the letter. “A day or two’s delay and Mrs Edgar might have sent it away and we would have lost it. Thank you.”

Carswell shrugged.

“I seem to be getting into the way of thinking like a criminal,” he said.

Major Vernon smiled. “That comes all too naturally to me,” he said. “I wonder what that says about my character.” As he spoke he was matching one of his lock-picking keys to the delicate padlock that secured the strap of the carpet bag. “Ah yes, there we have it.” He had gently manipulated the lock open. “This is a trick you could learn, Carswell. You would probably master it far more quickly than I did, with your dexterous fingers.”

“Some lessons in the autumn, perhaps?” Felix said, wondering if Major Vernon would still be speaking to him then. It would only be a matter of time before he discovered the arrangement he had entered into with Sukey.

They had talked of it for some time that morning on the beach. It had been a conversation that had no satisfactory end.

“We shall come to that, when we come to it,” Sukey had said. Now he wondered if he ought to come to it now and simply tell him. But he could not think quite how to begin, and he did not like to do it without her consent.

“Yes, certainly,” said Major Vernon. “Now, what have we here?”

“Letters, by the look of it,” said Felix.

“With interesting addresses – Marchsteads, Limpersleigh, Avonix Park. Coronet’s aplenty,” he said.

“And an account book,” said Felix. “The stupid woman!” he added, flipping through it. “She has recorded all their transactions with Edgar. What a fool!”

He handed it to Major Vernon.

“Yes and no,” said Major Vernon. “It may seem foolish to us, but to her this was work, survival – a record of all the successes and hope for the future. This is a fight against humiliation from Lady Anne and Lady Rothborough and the Duchess of Goodness knows where else. This is what was driving her. No-one was ever supposed to see this.”

He reached into the bag and began patting the interior.

“There is something sewn into the base,” he said. “Have you a knife to hand? I need to rip this seam.”

Carswell fetched a scalpel from his medical bag, while Major Vernon lit some more candles. The seam ripped away to reveal several neat packets made up in striped linen, also carefully stitched up. They contained money, two diamond bracelets, and four strings of pearls.

“We have her now, surely,” said Felix. “Yes?”

“None of this puts a weapon in her hands,” said Major Vernon. “But at least she may be charged for her part in the thefts. This is the same pattern of linen as the bag the parure was found in. That is something.”

“But theft is not enough. She is a murderer. She...” He broke off.

Major Vernon pooled the pearls into the open palm of his hand.

“The only way we can prove that is if she admits to it. And that she will never do.”

“I am sure you could get her to admit it,” said Felix, “if anyone can.”

“I doubt I will be allowed to interview her again,” Major Vernon said, “unless I play my trump card, but I am wary about doing that.”

“What trump card is that?” said Felix.

“I discovered something discreditable about Sir Arthur which could bring him to his knees. I do not like to use it simply to get my way on this. It is too serious a matter for that and I am in no position to be seen threatening Sir Arthur. We shall have to think of something else.”

He carefully replaced the pearls in their bag, and took up the letter.

“Did Mrs Edgar reply to this?”

“No, it only arrived yesterday,” said Felix.

“Perhaps she does not expect a reply. Just the bag. She will not feel safe until she gets her bag, and her secrets will she?”

“No.”

“Then we should let her have it,” Major Vernon said.

Chapter Forty-seven

There was no Mr Bertram, they soon discovered, when they enquired of the shop girl.