Ashworth Hall

5

PITT WOKE with his head throbbing. He lay still in the dark. There was no sound except the tiptoe of a housemaid outside in the corridor. That meant it was past five in the morning.

Then he remembered what had happened the previous day, the screaming, and Ainsley Greville’s body with its face under the water. It was someone in the house who had killed him, one of the guests. McGinley had been in his room talking to the valet Hennessey; O’Day had seen them. That meant all three of them were excluded. Physically, it could have been any of the others, although a man was far more likely, which left Fergal Moynihan, brother-in-law Doyle, or Piers. It was beginning to look more and more like Moynihan, except that Moynihan seemed to have abandoned his passionate Protestantism and all its precepts in his affair with Iona McGinley.

Could a man possibly be so double in his thinking? Fergal was committing adultery, a violation of one of the strictest commandments of his faith, and with a Catholic woman. Was it conceivable he would commit murder, against the greatest commandment of all, to preserve his faith from the continuation of popery?

Or was the preservation of Protestantism nothing to do with religion in his mind? Was it simply land, money, and power?

There were factors, perhaps major ones, Pitt did not yet know.

Charlotte was still asleep, warm and huddled up. He had been half aware of her moving restlessly during the night, turning over, pushing the pillows around. She was frightened for him. She had not said so. She had pretended she was perfectly confident, but he knew her better than to be deceived. There were mannerisms she had, a way of twisting her rings and tightening her shoulders, when she was worried.

Emily was frightened too, for Jack. He could hardly blame her. Jack was possibly in danger.

He slid out of bed. The fire had long gone out and it was cold. What was worse was that this morning, with the revelation of identity, he could hardly expect Tellman to fetch him any hot water.

He walked barefoot into the dressing room, which was also bitter, and started to put on his clothes. He could shave later. Now he needed to think. A hot cup of tea would help wake him up and clear his head. He knew where the upstairs pantry was, and the kettle.

He was halfway through boiling it, and the sky was graying outside, when Wheeler came in.

“Good morning, sir,” he said quietly. He never spoke in a normal voice until the guests were up. “May I prepare that for you?”

“Thank you.” Pitt stepped back. He was perfectly competent to do it himself, but he sensed that Wheeler wanted to. He felt more at ease doing his job than permitting someone else to.

Wheeler began with deft hands to lay a tray, which Pitt had not been going to bother with. The valet moved with a kind of grace. Pitt wondered what kind of a man he was when the mask of service was removed. What emotions had he, what interests?

“Would Mrs. Pitt like a tray also, sir?” Wheeler asked.

“No, thank you, I think she’s still asleep.” Pitt leaned against the door lintel.

“I’m glad I have the chance to talk to you, sir,” Wheeler said, watching very carefully as the kettle came to the boil. “You know there was another attempt on Mr. Greville’s life, some four or five weeks ago?”

“Yes, he told me. He was run off the road, but he never found out who was responsible.”

“That’s right, sir. And the outside staff tried everything they could think of. But there were also threatening letters.” He poured the water over the tea, then looked at Pitt very directly. “The letters are still at Oakfield House, sir. They are in Mr. Greville’s study, in the desk drawer. That’s somewhere Mrs. Greville would never go, nor the maids touch.”

“Thank you. Perhaps I’ll ride over today and have a look. There may be something in them to indicate who is behind this. It is obviously more than one person, because Mr. Greville would have recognized the driver who ran him off the road. He said he had remarkable eyes, wide set, and very pale blue. That man is not here now.”

“No sir. I’d put it on the Fenians, myself, but that’d make it Mr. McGinley, and from what Hennessey says, it couldn’t have been him. I’d be disinclined to believe Hennessey, except that Mr. O’Day says so too, and knowing how the Protestants like Mr. O’Day feel about Catholics like Mr. McGinley, he’d not say that if he didn’t have to.”

Pitt nodded rueful agreement and accepted the tea with appreciation.

After having returned to the bedroom and finding Charlotte still asleep, he had an early breakfast. To begin with there was no one else at the table except Jack, and they were able to talk frankly.

“Do you expect to find anything useful?” Jack said with some skepticism. “Surely if the threatening letters implicated anyone, he would have brought them to you already?”

“Possibly nothing,” Pitt conceded. “But there is plenty of evidence which is meaningless by itself but makes sense joined with something else. I have to look. I might get a better description of the coachman. There may be something else in the house, letters, papers. One of the servants might know or remember something.”

He looked across the wide table at Jack. At a glance he appeared very composed. He was as well-groomed as usual. He was a very handsome man in a casual, dashing way. His gray eyes were long lashed, his smile full of laughter and light. One would have to observe carefully to see the stiffness in his body, the occasion when he hesitated, took a deep breath, and then hurried on with what he was saying, the angle of his head as if he were half listening to hear something beyond the room. Pitt did not blame him for being afraid, both of the physical danger which had already struck Greville, but from which perhaps Pitt and Tellman could save him, and of the danger of failure in a responsibility which was far beyond anything he had approached so far in his very new career.

Doyle came in and greeted them with a smile. He seemed to be a man whom no tragedy or embarrassment could rob of composure. There were times when that was admirable, and others when it was irritating. Pitt wondered if it was a natural lack of ability to feel anything deeply, a shallowness in his emotional nature, or if it were a superb courage and self-control springing from consideration for others, an innate capacity for leadership and a kind of dignity which was all too rare.

As Carson O’Day joined them Pitt excused himself and went to look for Tellman. He found him coming up from the servants’ hall, his face dour and pinched in concentration.

“Learned anything?” Pitt asked him quietly, not to be overheard by a housemaid carrying a broom and a pail of damp tea leaves for the carpets.

“How to clean silver knives,” Tellman said with disgust. “It’s like a madhouse down there. At least six of them have threatened to give notice. The cook’s drinking the Madeira as fast as the butler can fetch it up, and the scullery maid’s so frightened she screams every time anyone speaks to her. I wouldn’t run a household if you paid me a king’s ransom!”

“I’m going to Oakfield House,” Pitt said with a ghost of a smile. “Greville’s home. It’s about ten or eleven miles away. I need to look at his papers, especially the threatening letters he received over the past month or two.”

“You think there’ll be anything in there that matters?” Tellman asked doubtfully.

“Possibly. Even if it is Moynihan, and I’m not sure of that, he certainly didn’t act alone. I want to know who’s behind him.”

“He doesn’t need anyone behind him.” Tellman also kept his voice down. “He’s got enough hatred to kill without prompting. Although he’ll be lucky if McGinley doesn’t do anything to him before the weekend is through. They’re all at their separate prayers down there.” He jerked his head towards the way he had come. “The Catholics looking daggers at the Protestants, and Protestants looking daggers back.”

His face reflected bewilderment and disgust, his eyes pulled down at the corners. “I’ve half a mind to stoke the kitchen fires so they can burn each other at the stake, and be done with it all. I can understand greed, jealousy, revenge, even some kinds of madness. But these people are sane—after a fashion.”

“Try and keep them from violence while I’m gone,” Pitt said, looking at Tellman steadily. He was uncertain whether to be light or to let Tellman know how anxious he felt. “Stay near Mr. Radley. He’s the one in most danger now.” He could not keep the catch out of his voice. “You can’t sit in the conference with him, but you can wait outside. I’ll be back not long after dark.”

Tellman straightened his shoulders a little, and the criticism dropped out of his voice.

“Yes sir. Ride careful. I suppose you know how to ride a horse?” He looked worried.

“Yes, thank you,” Pitt answered. “I grew up in the country, if you recall?”

Tellman grunted and continued on his way.

Pitt went to look for Charlotte to tell her what he proposed to do. He had hardly seen her since they arrived at Ashworth Hall. She always seemed to be with one of the other women, trying to persuade them to keep some kind of peace, or else making idle conversation to mask the social difficulties which were admittedly appalling.

This time it took him a quarter of an hour to find her, and he eventually discovered her in the warming room, a place designed to keep food hot before serving, since the dining room was a considerable distance from the kitchen. It contained a good fire, a steam-heated cabinet, and also a butler’s table and a marvelous array of implements for opening and decanting wine. She was listening earnestly to Gracie. They both stopped the instant he came in. Gracie blinked and excused herself.

“What is it?” Pitt asked, looking at her small, retreating form.

Charlotte smiled, her eyes filled with sadness and laughter at once.

“Just a few feminine secrets,” she answered.

Pitt could see she was not going to tell him any more. He had not thought of Gracie as having feminine secrets. He should have. She was twenty now, even though she was still no taller and very little plumper than she had been when she had come to them at thirteen.

“I’m going to ride over to Oakfield House,” he said. “I don’t suppose there is anything in the letters Greville received, but there might be. I can’t afford to overlook the chance. I’ll be back as soon after dark as I can.”

She nodded, her eyes anxious. “Ride carefully,” she said, then smiled with her head a little on one side. “You’ll be stiff tomorrow.” She reached up and kissed him very gently. She seemed about to say something else, and then changed her mind. “How will you find your way there?” she said instead.

“I’ll ask Piers. I need to get Eudora’s permission anyway, and help.”

She nodded, and then walked with him as far as the hall.

Pitt found Eudora in the upstairs boudoir with both Piers and Justine. She was not wearing black. Quite naturally, she had not brought black with her. The nearest she could do was an autumnal brown, and in spite of the ravages of shock and grief, she still looked beautiful. Nothing could rob her of the richness of her hair or the symmetry of her bones.

Justine was an extraordinary contrast. She also had not brought black. As a young, unmarried woman she would not wear the shade to such an occasion unless she was at the end of a period of mourning. She had chosen a deep hunting green, and with her dense black hair it was almost a jewel color. She seemed to vibrate with life. Even in repose, as she was now, sitting beside Eudora, Pitt’s eyes were drawn to the intelligence in her face.

Piers stood behind the two women, his expression defensive, as if he would protect them from further hurt, were it possible.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Pitt said gravely to Eudora. “I am sorry to intrude on you again, but I need your permission to go to Oakfield House and look through Mr. Greville’s papers to see if I can find the malevolent letters that he received.”

Eudora looked almost relieved, as if she had expected him to say something worse.

“Of course. Yes, naturally, Mr. Pitt. Do you wish me to write something?”

“If you please. And I shall need any necessary keys.” He wondered what she had feared from him … some further disaster? Or that he suspected someone in particular? Surely, as far as she was concerned, the worst had already happened? “I would also appreciate directions as to the best way to get there,” he added. “I shall ride across country, or I shall take far too long. I want to be back before nightfall.”

Piers glanced at Justine, then at Pitt. “Would you like me to come with you?” he offered. “That would make it much easier. It would be very difficult indeed to describe to you the best way there, or even to draw a map.”

“Thank you,” Pitt accepted without hesitation. Apart from the convenience of it, he would welcome the opportunity to speak less formally to Piers, and perhaps learn more of Ainsley Greville. Without realizing it, Piers might know something of meaning.

“What can you learn from his papers?” Justine asked with obvious doubt. “Will they not be state papers anyway, and confidential?” She looked from Piers to Eudora, and back at Pitt. Her voice dropped. “He was killed in this house, and you said it was someone here. No one broke in. Shouldn’t we … shouldn’t we leave him his privacy?”

“It is only Mr. Pitt looking at them, my dear,” Eudora said, blinking a little, as if the concern puzzled her. “There won’t be any government papers that matter at Oakfield, they would all be at Whitehall. There may be the unpleasant letters which I know he received, and perhaps that will help us”—she took a deep breath—“to learn who is behind this.” She looked at Pitt, her eyes wide and dark. “There must be more than one person, mustn’t there? There was the incident with the carriage.” She was clenching her hands together.

“Of course,” Piers agreed. “We should look at those letters. And there may be other things that he didn’t mention ….”

Justine rose to her feet, taking Piers’s arm. “Your father is no longer here to protect himself, his privacy,” she said to him, turning a little away from Pitt. “He may have private or personal financial papers, or other letters which it would be preferable were not seen outside the family. He was a great man. He must have dealt with many matters which were confidential. There will have been friends who trusted him, wrote to him of issues which might be embarrassing if they were to become public. We all have … indiscretions ….” She left it in the air, but she turned to Pitt and met his eyes with a wide stare.

“I shall be discreet, Miss Baring,” he assured her. “I imagine he was privy to much information that was sensitive, but I doubt it will be committed to paper in his home. But as has been pointed out, the tragedy was not an isolated incident. There was an attempt to kill Mr. Greville a few weeks ago—”

She turned to Eudora. “You must have been so afraid for him. And then to have this happen. I imagine it was just … the sort of threats people make when they want something, empty, bullying.” She looked back at Pitt. “Of course, you must find out who sent them. They may very well be behind this, since they have actually attempted before.” She looked at Piers. “What happened?”

“Someone tried to drive him off the road. I wasn’t there, I was up at Cambridge. Mama was in London.” He put his arm around her gently, his eyes on her face. “Will you be all right here if I go with Mr. Pitt?”

She smiled back at him. “Yes, of course I will. And I will look after your mother. I think with the other tensions there are, poor Mrs. Radley could do with all the assistance any of us can offer.” A ghost of amusement, and perhaps pity, crossed her eyes and vanished. “I did hear rumors of what the trouble is between the Moynihans and the McGinleys, but I shall pretend I didn’t. I think it will be the only way to get through the day, which threatens to feel like a week.”

“Surely they will forget all that now?” Piers looked startled. “The future of Ireland may be altered here if Mr. Radley can keep the conference going. After all that has happened, how can anyone care about something so—”

She smiled at him, touching his cheek with her finger. “My dear, we are quite capable of worrying about our own personal grievances and private habits while the whole world is collapsing around us. Perhaps it is easier to think on that scale. I don’t doubt the Last Trump will find some of us bickering about the price of a piece of ribbon, or who forgot to pinch out the candle. The end of the world would seem too much to grasp in the mind.” She glanced at Pitt. “Don’t worry about us, Mr. Pitt, we shall manage the day.”

He found himself liking Justine far more than he had expected to. She was anything but ordinary. He wondered what she saw in Piers that so attracted her. He seemed so young compared with her mature humor and balance. But then he was judging on the slightest acquaintance, and it was unfair. He knew very little about any of them, beyond the superficial.

He thanked Eudora and took his leave, arranging to meet Piers in the stables in fifteen minutes.

It was cold but not unpleasant as they set out on two excellent horses, traveling first across the parkland at a brisk canter, then turning along the edge of plowed fields and towards a lane which wound through a patch of woodland. It had been years since Pitt had ridden. One does not forget the feel of the animal. The creak of leather, the smell, the rhythmic movement were all familiar, but he knew he would be painfully stiff the next day. He was using muscles unstretched in a decade. He could imagine Tellman’s comments, and see the discreet smile on Jack’s face.

They could not converse while they were moving swiftly, but when they were obliged to slow to a walk between the trees it came quite naturally. Piers rode well, with the grace of a man who is both used to the saddle and fond of his animals.

“Will you look for a city practice?” Pitt asked, as much for something uncontentious to say as because he was interested.

“Oh no,” Piers replied quickly, lifting his head to look at the bare branches above. “I really don’t like London. And I know Justine would prefer a country life.”

“I imagine your father’s death will change your plans?” They were moving more slowly now along a winding path, Piers a little ahead as they crossed a stream and the horses scrambled up the farther bank, sending a scatter of stones back into the water. The wind caught a flurry of fallen leaves with a rustling sound, and far away to the left a dog barked.

“I hadn’t thought of it,” Piers said frankly. “Mama will stay on in Oakfield House, of course. It hasn’t anything like the lands of Ashworth. There are no farms to manage. She won’t need me. Justine and I will find somewhere, perhaps near Cambridge. Of course, financially I will be more fortunately placed, I suppose.”

“You probably will not need to practice medicine,” Pitt pointed out.

Piers swiveled quickly to stare at him. “But I want to! I know my father would have liked me to stand for Parliament, but I have no interest in it whatever. I am interested in public health.” There was a sudden enthusiasm in his face, a light in his eyes which made him quite different from the rather bland young man he had been even moments before. “I care about diseases of nutrition especially. Have you any idea how many English children suffer from rickets? The medical textbook even calls it the English disease! And scurvy. It isn’t only seamen who get scurvy. And night blindness. There are too many things we are on the brink of being able to treat, but we don’t quite manage it.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to be in Parliament?” Pitt said wryly, catching up to ride beside him as they emerged into an open field.

Piers was perfectly serious. “You can’t make laws until you have proved your case. First you must make them believe, then understand, then care. After that it is time for legislation. I want to work with people who need help, not argue with politicians and make compromises.”

Pitt dismounted and opened the gate at the side of the field and held it while Piers took both horses through, then closed it behind them. He remounted a trifle more elegantly than he had mounted the first time.

“That makes me sound very arrogant, doesn’t it?” Piers said more moderately. “I know compromise is necessary in a lot of things. I just have no skills at it. My father was brilliant. He could charm and persuade people into all sorts of things. If anyone could have succeeded with the Irish Problem, it would have been he. He had a sort of power, almost an invulnerability. He wasn’t afraid of people the way most of us are. He always knew what he wanted out of any situation and how much he was prepared to yield or to pay for it. He never changed his mind.”

Pitt thought about it as they moved forward into a canter again over a long stretch of pasture land. He had seen that assurance in Greville, the quiet ruthlessness of a man who can keep his purpose in mind and never waver from it. It was a very necessary quality in his chosen profession, but it was not entirely attractive. Piers had not said that directly, but he had allowed it to be inferred. There was no warmth when he spoke of his father, and very little regret.

Oakfield House was, as he had said, considerably smaller than Ashworth, but it was still a very handsome residence. Approaching it from the west, it looked to be of a size to have ten or twelve bedrooms, and numerous stables and other outbuildings. It was the country home of a man of both taste and position, discreet but of considerable wealth.

They left the horses with the groom and went in through the side door. Pitt was already feeling his leg muscles pull a little. By the next day he would be regretting this.

The butler came across the hall looking disconcerted, his white hair ruffled.

“Master Piers! We weren’t expecting you. I’m afraid Mr. and Mrs. Greville are away at the moment. But of course …” He saw Pitt and his expression became colder and more formal. “Good morning, sir. May I be of any assistance?”

“Thurgood,” Piers said quietly. He walked towards him and took him by one elbow. “I’m sorry, but there has been a tragedy. My father has been killed. Uncle Padraig is with Mama, but it was necessary that I come here with Mr. Pitt.” He indicated Pitt while still steadying the swaying butler with the other hand. “We need to look at Papa’s papers and letters, and find the threats that were sent recently. If there is anything you know which might be of help, please make sure you tell us.”

“Killed?” Thurgood looked startled. Suddenly his slight officiousness vanished and he looked elderly and rather rumpled.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Piers continued. “But please tell the staff there will be no changes, and they are to continue as usual. They must not discuss it yet, because it has not been in the newspapers, and we have not informed the other members of the family.”

It rose to Pitt’s tongue to ask Thurgood not to mention it at all, but he realized before he spoke that that would be an impossibility. The man’s shock was all too apparent. Others would draw the news from him even if he were unwilling. The air of tragedy and fear was already in the house.

“Perhaps you would arrange a hot toddy for us,” Piers went on. “It’s been a long ride. And then luncheon at about one. We’ll take it in the library. A little cold meat or pie, whatever you have.”

“Yes sir. I’m very sorry, sir. I’m sure the other staff will wish me to convey their sympathies also,” Thurgood said awkwardly. “When shall we expect the mistress home, sir? And of course there will be … arrangements ….”

“I don’t know yet. I’m sorry.” Piers frowned. “Do you understand, Thurgood, this is a government secret at the moment? I think perhaps you had better tell the housekeeper and no one else. Treat it as a family embarrassment, if you like.” He glanced at Pitt and smiled with a little twist of the mouth. “Use the same discretion you would if you had overheard a confession to something shameful.”

Thurgood obviously did not understand, but his face reflected bland obedience.

When he had withdrawn. Piers led the way to the library, with his father’s large desk in one corner. The room was cold, but the fire was laid, and Piers bent and lit it without bothering to call a servant. As soon as he was sure it had caught, he straightened up and produced keys to open the desk drawers.

The first one yielded personal accounts, and Pitt read through them without expecting to find anything of interest. There were tailors’ bills, and shirtmakers’; receipts for two pairs of very expensive boots, onyx-faced shirt studs and a fan of carved ivory and lace, an enameled pillbox with a painting of a lady on a swing, and three bottles of lavender water. They were all dated within the last month. It seemed Greville had been a very generous husband. It surprised Pitt. He had not observed such affection or imagination in him. Eudora was going to find the loss bitter. The private man had obviously been more sensitive and far more emotional than the public politician.

He stood still, holding the papers in his hand, looking around the well-furnished library with its book-lined walls, a few excellent paintings, mostly of scenes from Africa, water-colors of Table Mountain and the sweeping skies of the Veldt. The books in the cases were largely sets of volumes, uniformly bound in leather, but one case seemed to hold odd ones, and from the armchair it was the most easily accessible. He would look at them if he had time. Greville had suddenly become more interesting as a man, a sharper loss now that Pitt had seen his humanity, a sense of his inner emotion.

Piers was looking through the drawers on the further side of the desk. He straightened up, several letters in his hand.

“I think I have them,” he said grimly, holding them forward. “Some of them are threatening.” He looked puzzled, hurt. “Only two are anonymous or sound political.” He stared at Pitt, uncertain what he wanted to say. Twice he started, stopped again, and then simply put out his hand with the papers.

Pitt took them and looked at the first. It was printed in block letters and extremely simple.

Do not betray Ireland or you will be sorry. We will win our freedom, and no Englishman is going to defeat us this time. It will be a simple matter to kill you. Remember that.

Not surprisingly, it was unsigned and undated.

The next was utterly different. It was written in a strong, clear hand, and it was both dated and carried a sender’s address.

Oct 20th. 1890.

Dear Greville,

I find it most repugnant to have to address any gentleman on a matter such as this, but your behaviour leaves me no alternative. Your attentions to my wife must cease immediately. I do not propose to enlarge upon the subject. You are aware of your transgression and it needs no detail from me.

If you see her again, other than as the ordinary demands of civilized society dictate, and in public, I shall take the necessary steps to sue her for divorce, and cite you as an adulterer. I am sure I do not need to spell out what this will do to your career.

I do not write this in idleness. Through her behaviour with you I have lost all regard for her, and while I would not willingly ruin her, I shall do so rather than continue to be betrayed in this fashion.

Yours most candidly

Gerald Easterwood

Pitt looked up at Piers. The image of Greville of only a few moments ago had been shattered.

“Do you know a Mrs. Easterwood?” he said quietly.

“Yes. At least by reputation. I’m afraid it is not much … not as good as perhaps Mr. Easterwood would like to imagine.”

“Was he a friend of your father’s?”

“Easterwood? No. Hardly the same social circle. My father—” he hesitated “—was a good friend to those he liked, or considered his equals. I can’t imagine him using another man’s wife, not if the man were someone he knew … I mean, as a friend. He was very loyal to his friends.” He started as if to repeat it again, and realized he had already stressed it.

Pitt looked at the next letter. It was another political threat, and very plainly concerning the future of Ireland, but seemed to be more in favor of the Protestant Ascendancy and the preservation of the estates which had been worked for and paid for by Anglo-Irish landlords. It also promised reprisals if Greville should betray their interests.

The one after was personal and signed.

My dear Greville,

I can never thank you sufficiently for the generosity you have extended to me in this matter. Without you it would have been a disaster for me—deserved perhaps, but nevertheless because of your intervention I shall survive, to behave with more circumspection in the future.

I am forever in your debt,

Your humble and grateful friend

Langley Osbourne

“Do you know him?” Pitt asked.

Piers looked blank. “No.”

There were three more. Another was an Irish threat, but so illiterately written it was hard to understand what was desired, except an ill-defined idea of justice. The threat of a most colorful death was constrastingly plain, and mention was made of an old story of lovers who had both been betrayed by the English.

The following one was quite long, and from a friend of some considerable intimacy and length of time. The tone was one of social arrogance, class loyalty, common memory and interest, and deep unquestioned personal affection and trust. Pitt instinctively disliked the writer, one Malcom Anders, and found himself judging Greville less kindly because of it.

The last letter was unopened, even though the postmark was dated almost two weeks before. Apparently it had been of little interest to him. Presumably he had recognized the writing and not bothered to read it. Perhaps he had received it when there was no fire burning and he had not wished to leave it in the wastepaper basket, where a curious housemaid or footman might see it and maybe have sufficient literacy to be able to understand it.

Pitt opened it carefully and read. It was a love letter from a woman who signed herself Mary-Jane. It spoke of an intimate relationship which Greville had ended, according to the writer, abruptly and without explanation, other than the assumption that he had become bored with her. There seemed a callousness about the whole matter which Pitt found repellent. Certainly there was an element of using, and nothing of love. Whether she had loved him, or simply used him also, in a different manner, he could only guess.

He handed the letters back to Piers.

“I can see why he felt the threats were probably irrelevant,” he said matter-of-factly. “They could be from anyone at all, and seem to come from Nationalist Catholic and Protestant Unionist alike. It doesn’t help us at all. Still, we’ll take them.”

“Just … the threats?” Piers said quickly.

“Yes, of course. Lock the others back in the drawer. You can destroy them later if we find they have nothing to do with the case.”

“They can’t have.” Piers still held them in his hand. “There’s nothing political about them. It’s simply a sordid affair … well, two. But both of them are over … were over … before this. Can’t you just burn them, and keep quiet? My mother has enough to bear without having to know about this.”

“Lock them up again,” Pitt instructed. “And keep the keys yourself. When the case is over you can come in here and sort anything you want to, and destroy what is better kept discreet. Now, let me look through the rest of the drawers.”

The butler returned, looking haggard, bringing the promised hot toddy. He seemed on the brink of enquiring as to their success, then changed his mind and left.

They searched the rest of the library but found nothing more of interest to the case. The books and papers shed more light on Greville’s character. He was obviously a man of high intelligence and wide interests. There was the first draft of a monograph on ancient Roman medicine, and Pitt could happily have taken the time to read it, had he had any excuse. It was vividly written. On the shelves there were books on subjects as diverse as early Renaissance painting in Tuscany and the native birds of North America.

Pitt wondered if Eudora had any place in the room, if he had shared some of his interests with her, or if their worlds of the mind had been entirely separate, as was the case in some marriages. All that many held in common were a home, children, a social life and status, and economic circumstance. The imagination, the humor, the great voyages of the heart and intellect, were all made alone. Even the searching of the spirit was unshared.

How much would Eudora really miss him? Had she any idea of the reality of her home, or did she see what she wished to see? Many people did that as a way to place armor around their vulnerability and preserve what they had for survival. He could not blame her if she were one of those.

Luncheon was brought to them in the library and they ate by the fire, saying little. Piers had already learned more about his father in the last two hours than in the preceding ten years, and it complicated the picture he held of him. There was too much to admire and to despise, too much that tore open the emotions and made grief a far more complex thing than simply a sudden loneliness.

Pitt did not intrude with speech.

After they had finished Pitt went out to find the coach driver and question him about the incident on the road. That had been a serious and genuine attempt at murder.

He found the man in the stables polishing a harness. The smell of leather and saddle soap jerked him back in memory to his youth and the estate where his father had been gamekeeper and he had grown up. He could have been a boy again, scrounging winter apples, sitting silently in the corner listening to the grooms and coachmen talking of the horses and dogs, swapping gossip. He could imagine going back to supper in the gamekeeper’s cottage, and to bed in his tiny room under the eaves. Or later, after his father’s disgrace, after the anger and the rage of injustice had passed, to his room at the top of the big house, when Sir Arthur had taken in his mother and himself.

Now he would ride back to Ashworth Hall and sleep beside Charlotte in one of the great guest bedrooms with its four-poster bed and embroidered linen and a fire in the grate. He would not douse himself quickly in the icy water from the pump, but ring a bell, and a manservant would bring him ewers of steaming hot water, enough for a bath if he wanted it. He would have a separate room in which to dress, and then breakfast would be as much as he could eat, with a choice of half a dozen different dishes. He would have silver knives and forks to use, and a linen napkin. And he would sit with people for whom this was the usual and familiar way of life. They had never experienced anything else.

But after he had finished he would not leave for the schoolroom he had been permitted to share with Matthew Desmond, nor for the numerous small tasks around the estate, safely taught or supervised by someone older. He would bear the responsibility for solving the murder of a minister of government, a man whose life he had been sent to safeguard in the first place … and failed.

He leaned against the stable wall, his feet in the comfortable, familiar-smelling straw, and heard the horses moving contentedly in other stalls on the farther side.

He had already introduced himself to the coachman and explained to him that Greville was dead. He had wondered whether to try to keep it from him, and decided that if he were a loyal servant, he would tell a stranger little of meaning if he thought his master still alive.

“Describe for me the incident when you were driven off the road,” he asked.

The man spoke haltingly, searching for words, all the time his browned hands were working with the leather and soap, rubbing, relishing. His account was in all essentials, exactly the same as Greville’s. He also remembered the eyes of the other driver.

“Mad, they looked ter me,” he said with a shake of his head. “Starin’, like.”

“Pale or dark?” Pitt asked.

“Pale, like light coming off water,” he answered. “Never seen a face like it afore. Nor again, I ’ope!”

“But you had no success in finding where the horses came from?”

“No.” He looked down at the harness in his hands. “Din’ try ’ard enough, I reckon. If we ’ad, p’raps Mr. Greville’d be alive now. Lunatics, them Irish. Course, not all of ’em. Young Kathleen were a good girl. Couldn’t ’elp likin’ er. I were real sorry when she went.”

“Who was Kathleen?” It probably did not matter, but he would ask anyway.

“Kathleen O’Brien. She were a maid ’ere. Not unlike our Doll, she were, only dark; dark as night, wi’ them blue Irish eyes.”

“Was she from Ireland?”

“Oh yes! Voice as soft as melted butter, an’ sing real lovely.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Six month.” His face closed over and his shoulders tightened.

“Why did she leave?” Pitt could not dismiss the thought crossing his mind that she could have had relatives—brothers, even a lover—who were passionate Nationalists.

“There weren’t nothing wrong wi’ Kathleen,” the coachman said, keeping his eyes on his work. “If yer thinkin’ she ’ad summat ter do wi’ that, yer wrong.”

“Why would she have?” Pitt asked quietly. “Did she leave here with a bad feeling? Did she have cause?”

“I’ve got nothing to say, Mr. Pitt.”

“Did you drive Mr. Greville in London as well, or only here?”

“I bin up ter Lunnon lots o’ times. There in’t much proper carriage drivin’ ’ere when both the master and mistress is up in town. John can do all o’ that. Learn ’im a bit.”

“So you would drive Mr. Greville in London?”

“I said so.”

“Do you know Mrs. Easterwood?”

No answer was necessary. The hesitation gave him away, then the angle of his body, the way his fingers stopped on the leather, then started again, digging into it, knuckles white.

“Were there many like Mrs. Easterwood?” Pitt asked quietly.

Again there was silence.

“I understand your loyalty,” Pitt went on. “And I admire it … whether it is to Mr. Greville or his widow ….” He saw the man wince at the word. “But he was murdered, struck over the head and drowned in his own bath, left there all night for Doll to find him in the morning, naked, his face under the water—”

The coachman jerked his head up, his eyes narrow and angry.

“You got no call ter go tellin’ me that! It in’t decent for folks ter know—”

“Folks don’t know.” Pitt reached across and passed him a clean cloth. “But I mean to find out who did it. It wasn’t just one man, because the coach driver with the staring eyes isn’t at Ashworth Hall. There was also a good man murdered in London, a decent man with a family, to keep this secret. I want them all, and I mean to have them. If I have to learn some squalid details about a few women like Mrs. Easterwood, and a good deal about Mr. Greville that the public don’t need to know, then I will.”

“Yes sir.” It was grudging. He hated it, but he saw no alternative. His hands clenched over the harness and his shoulders were tight.

“Were there others like Mrs. Easterwood?” Pitt asked again.

“A few.” He kept his eyes on Pitt’s. He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Mostly up Lunnon way. Never wi’ wives of a friend. He’d not take anything what’s theirs. Only take them as is willin’—” He stopped suddenly.

“And don’t count,” Pitt finished for him, remembering the tone of Malcolm Anders’s letter.

“There’s nobody what doesn’t count, Mr. Pitt.”

“Even whores?”

The coachman’s face reddened. “You got no place to go calling any woman a whore, Mr. Pitt, an’ I don’ care who you are, I won’t stand ’ere an’ listen to it.”

“Even girls like Kathleen O’Brien? Lie with anyone to better their chances and—” Pitt too stopped suddenly, seeing the rage and the hurt in the man’s eyes. He had gone too far. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. He meant it. He could picture the story. It would be one of a dozen variations on the old theme, a handsome maid, a master who was used to taking anything he wanted and did not think of servants as people like himself, with tenderness and dignity or honor to be hurt. The distinction would not even be intentional.

“She weren’t like that.” The coachman glared at him. “You’ve no place saying it!”

“I wanted to provoke you into honesty,” Pitt confessed. “What happened to Kathleen?”

The man was still angry. He reminded Pitt of the coachman where he grew up, taciturn, loyal, honest to the point of bluntness, but endlessly patient with animals or the young.

“She got dismissed for thievin’,” he said grudgingly. “But it were because she wouldn’t have no one touch ’er.”

Pitt found himself relaxing. He had not realized until that moment that he had been clenching his hands so hard the nails had scraped his palms, and his muscles ached.

“Did she go back to Ireland?”

“I dunno. We gave ’er what we could, me and Cook and Mr. Wheeler.”

“Good. But you are still loyal to Mr. Greville?”

“No sir,” he corrected. “I’m loyal to the mistress. I wouldn’t ’ave ’er know about them things. Some ladies know an’ can üve with it, others can’t. I reckon as she’s one as couldn’t. In’t nothing sour in her, or some would say realistic. You won’t go telling her, will you?”

“I won’t tell her anything I don’t have to,” Pitt answered, and he said it with regret, because he knew it did not mean a great deal. He wished he could have given the assurances the coachman sought.

They rode back through the gathering dusk, the light dying rapidly in the autumn evening, and Pitt was profoundly glad he was not trying to make his way along the hedgerows and through the woods alone. There was little wind, but even so the air was growing colder all the time, and the sharp prickle of frost stung his nose. Twigs snapped under his horse’s hooves and its breath was white against the gloom.

It was over an hour and a half before they saw the lights of Ashworth Hall and rode into the stable yard to dismount. In the past Pitt had always had to unsaddle his own horse, walk it cool, rub it down and feed and water it, sometimes Matthew’s horse as well. He felt remiss, uncaring, to hand it over to someone else and simply walk away. It was another reminder of how far he was from his origins. Piers, young and slender and full of pain, did it as casually as a man takes off his jacket in his own house.

Pitt followed him in through the side door, scraping his boots on the ornamental cast-iron grid set there for the purpose.

Inside the house was warm, even the hall seemed to embrace him after the sharpness of the night air. A footman was waiting attentively.

“May I fetch you anything, sir?” he asked Pitt first, to Pitt’s surprise. He had momentarily forgotten he was a personal guest, Piers only an addition, and a younger one. “A hot drink? A glass of whiskey? Mulled wine?”

“Thank you, a hot drink would be excellent. Is Mr. Radley out of his meeting yet?”

“No sir. I venture to say that they have been going rather better than expected.” He looked at Piers. “May I get a hot drink for you also, sir?”

“Yes, thank you.” Piers looked at Pitt. He had not asked him what he was going to say. He had already asked for his discretion once, and he had no idea what the coachman had told him. “I’ll go up and see Miss Baring.” He looked back at the footman. “Is she with my mother, do you know?”

“Yes, sir, in the blue boudoir.”

“Thank you.” With only another glance at Pitt, he went upstairs and disappeared around the turn of the staircase onto the landing.

“I’ll have my drink upstairs too,” Pitt instructed. “I think I’ll have a bath before dinner.”

“Yes sir. I will have some water brought up for you, sir.”

Pitt smiled. “Thank you. Yes, please, do that.”

It was Tellman who came with it. He did it with a very ill grace indeed. The only reason he did not splash water all over the floor was that he might have found himself mopping it up afterwards. He would be delighted, however, if Pitt were too stiff the next day to move without pain.

“I learned a great deal,” Pitt said conversationally, undoing his cravat and laying it on the side table. He began to unfasten his shirt, moving behind the screen which was set up to keep the draft from the door off the bath.

“About what?” Tellman asked grudgingly.

Pitt went on undressing and told him about Mrs. Easterwood and those others like her, about Kathleen O’Brien and what the coachman had said, and not said, about her dismissal.

Tellman stood leaning against the marble-topped table with jug, bath salts and soap dishes on it, his hands deep in his pockets, his face grim.

“Seems like he earned himself a few enemies,” he said thoughtfully. “But girls who are wrongly treated don’t come back and murder their masters.” He moved to keep himself on the other side of the screen from Pitt or the bath. “If they did it would probably do away with half the aristocracy of England.”

“It would put a fairly swift stop to the abuse,” Pitt said with a shiver as he stepped into the hot water. It was delicious, and he had not realized until that moment quite how cold and stiff he was, or how very tired. It had been far too long since he had done anything so physically strenuous. He eased himself into the steaming, fragrant foam. “I doubt it had any relevance,” he went on more seriously. “But we have to consider the possibility that Kathleen O’Brien may have had Nationalist, even Fenian, relatives, and been more than willing to offer information. Heaven knows, it seems she had cause.”

“Does it matter?” Tellman opened one of the jars of salts and sniffed it curiously, then wrinkled his nose at its effeminacy. “It was someone in this house now who killed him. It certainly wasn’t a disgruntled husband or Kathleen O’Brien. He would have known them. Anyway, we’ve been told the background of everyone here.”

Pitt had no choice but to speak to Eudora. When he was dressed again, not having seen Charlotte, who was busy assisting Emily entertain Kezia and Iona, he went to Eudora’s sitting room and knocked.

The door was opened by Justine. There was a flicker of hope in her eyes, and she searched Pitt’s face and was uncertain what she saw, except that it would hurt. Piers was not there. Presumably he was still in his bath, or dressing for dinner.

“Come in, Mr. Pitt.” She opened the door wide and stood back. She was dressed in deep purplish-blue and was so slender she should have looked fragile, yet her grace instead gave the impression of strength, like a dancer’s. It was so easy to understand why Piers was fascinated with her—she had such beauty, arrested suddenly and startlingly by the uniqueness of her nose. He could not even decide whether it was ugly or merely different.

Beyond her, Eudora was sitting in one of the large chairs beside the fire, close to it, as if she were cold, although the room was warm. There was no color in her skin, for all the vividness of her hair. She looked at Pitt guardedly, without interest, as if all he could say would be necessary but tedious, and already familiar.

Justine closed the door behind him and he walked in, without invitation sitting in the chair opposite Eudora. He had thought about this during most of the long, cold ride back to Ashworth Hall, but it still was difficult to know the least painful way to say what he had to, or judge how much could not be held from hen Some of it would become known anyway, and better she learn it privately, and before others did.

The more he looked at her face in the firelight with its gentle lines, its lovely eyes and lips, the more he despised Greville for his betrayals. He knew the judgment was harsh even as he was making it. He had no idea what she was like within such a close relationship, how cold or critical, how silently cruel, how disdainful or remote. And yet he made the judgment just the same, because his mind and his instinct told him different things.

“Mrs. Greville, I read all the letters and papers in Mr. Greville’s study and spoke to the coachman about the incident on the road. I understand why he did not show us the letters before. They are of little use, just very general threats, and unsigned. They could be from almost anyone.”

“So you found nothing?” She sounded as though she were unsure if she were disappointed or relieved.

“Nothing from those letters,” he amended. “There were others, and events which emerged from speaking with the servants.”

“Oh? He did not mention other threats to me. Perhaps he was protecting me from the worry.”

Justine came back towards the fire.

“I am sure he would. He would not wish you to be afraid if he could avoid it.”

Eudora smiled at her. It was obvious the two women had already formed a bond in grief. Justine had barely known Greville, but she seemed deeply sensitive to the loss.

“Do you remember a maid you had called Kathleen O’Brien?” Pitt asked.

Eudora thought for a moment. “Yes, yes, she was a very handsome girl. Irish, of course.” She frowned. “You don’t think she had anything to do with Fenians, do you? She was from the south, but she seemed a very gentle girl, not in the least … I suppose it is absurd to speak of a servant as politically minded. Are you saying she might have been passing information about us to others?” Her face made her disbelief plain.

“She may have had brothers, or a lover,” Justine pointed out.

Eudora looked unconvinced. “But the attack happened quite some time after she had left us. She could have told them nothing they could not have gathered for themselves merely by watching the stable yard. I won’t have Kathleen blamed, Mr. Pitt, without very good evidence. And she certainly was not here this weekend. I have seen Miss Moynihan’s maid, and Mrs. McGinley’s. No, this has nothing to do with Kathleen.”

“Why did she leave you, Mrs. Greville?”

She hesitated. He saw the lie in her eyes before she spoke.

“Some family matter. She went back to Ireland.”

“Why do you say that?”

She looked at him with wide, unhappy eyes.

“She was charged with thieving.” He said what she would not.

Justine stiffened, but her expression was unreadable.

“I don’t believe she was guilty,” Eudora said, but her eyes avoided Pitt’s. “I think it was a misunderstanding. I wanted to—” She stopped.

Did she know? Did it matter anyway? Was it necessary to injure her still further by despoiling her husband’s memory in her mind? He would much rather not. She looked so crushed already, so easily hurt. Perhaps it did not matter.

Justine had moved closer to Eudora, facing Pitt.

“Surely you don’t think this girl had anything to do with it, do you?” she said very calmly. “Even if she went back to Ireland and was a sympathizer with nationalism, even if she told people she had been in service in Oakfield House, she couldn’t have told them anything of value. Mr. Greville was killed here, and the attack on the road could have been anyone, but it wasn’t a woman.” Her eyes were very straight and level.

“No, that is perfectly true,” Pitt conceded. Expressed as she had, it dwindled into insignificance. “Mrs. Greville, do you know a Mrs. Easterwood?”

“Yes, slightly.” Her expression belied the cautious tone of her voice. She did not care for her. Either she knew about or suspected Greville’s connection with her, or she knew her reputation.

Perhaps sensing some nervousness in Eudora, Justine moved an inch or two closer and put an arm protectively across the back of the chair.

“Are these people who might have given information about Mr. Greville’s movements, Mr. Pitt?” Justine asked, her tone still polite but with a thread of warning in it. “Do you believe that knowing who they are will lead you to the person in this house who actually committed the murder? Or to whoever killed the poor man in London? Whatever they said was probably unwilling, and they won’t even remember to whom they spoke.” She smiled very faintly. “It was no intruder, that you already established through Mr. Tellman’s questioning of the other servants. It is a political crime, because of Mr. Greville’s stand for peace and the skill he brought to the conference table. Someone wants peace only on their terms, or continued violence.”

“I know, Miss Baring,” Pitt conceded. He could understand, even applaud, her desire to protect Eudora from any further distress. Possibly she guessed that Greville’s personal fife was not one which would be easy for Eudora to learn of. Pitt felt all the same emotions himself.

But a new and very ugly thought had entered his mind, and he could not dismiss it. If Eudora knew of Greville’s liaisons with Mrs. Easterwood and her kind, and suspected what had really happened to Kathleen O’Brien, then she had good cause to hate her husband. Perhaps her brother, Padraig Doyle, also knew these things. Might he see it as yet another betrayal of the Irish by the English? Might this be one wrong he had decided to avenge himself, under cover of a political threat? Or even as part of a political act? No one had broken into Ashworth Hall. Had Doyle been a very willing assassin in Fenian hands? Pitt had thought him less likely before simply because of the family relationship. But that was not now true.

“Mrs. Greville,” he said very quietly, “the letters we found, and the information given by the servants, much against their will, show that Mr. Greville had close, intimate ties with several other women. Unless you wish to know, I shall not tell you the details, but they are not capable of any other interpretation. I am sorry.”

Justine’s elegant body tightened as if he had struck Eudora a physical blow. She stared at him with disgust in her beautiful, wide eyes.

Eudora was very pale, and she had difficulty in finding her voice and keeping it steady. But the look in her eyes as she met Pitt’s gaze was not pain so much as fear.

“Many men have frailties, Mr. Pitt,” she said slowly. “Especially powerful men in high office. The temptation falls their way more easily, perhaps, and they need the pleasure of having been able for a little while to forget their responsibilities. Those affairs are brief and have no meaning. A wise woman learns very quickly to ignore them. Ainsley never allowed me to be embarrassed in any way. He was discreet. He did not flirt with my friends. Not every woman is so fortunate.”

“And Kathleen O’Brien?” He hated having to mention her again.

“She was a maid, you said!” Justine cut in with contempt. “Surely you are not suggesting a man of Mr. Greville’s dignity and station would be flirting with a maid, Mr. Pitt? That is insulting.”

Eudora turned and looked up at her.

“Thank you, my dear, for your loyalty. You have been extraordinarily helpful to me in this time. But perhaps you should go and be with Piers. He too must be feeling very shaken and disturbed by this. I would go to him myself, but I know he would prefer you.” A flicker of regret crossed her mouth and vanished. “You might make sure he has something to eat, after his long ride.”

Justine accepted her dismissal gracefully, leaving Pitt alone with Eudora.

Eudora leaned even closer to the fire, as if in spite of the now almost oppressive heat in the room, she were still cold. The yellow light from the flames lit her cheeks and the gentle angle of her chin, and cast the shadows of her lashes on her skin.

Pitt felt brutal, but he had no choice. He forced himself to remember Greville’s dead face under the water, the indignity of his body, Doll’s screaming; and Denbigh lying dead in a London alley.

“Was Kathleen O’Brien a thief, Mrs. Greville?” he asked.

“No, I don’t believe so,” she whispered.

“Was she dismissed for refusing to accommodate your husband’s wishes regarding her?”

“That … may have been part of the reason. She was … difficult.” She would not be drawn further. He could see it in the set of her shoulders. For all its softness under the draping of her dark dress, her body was rigid. There was much in her form, her auburn coloring, which was like Charlotte, except that she was so much more vulnerable.

“Was your brother, Mr. Doyle, aware of your husband’s tastes and his indulgences?”

“I never told him,” she said instantly. It was an answer of pride. It was also evasive. “One does not discuss such things. It would be embarrassing … and disloyal.” There was criticism in her voice, and a huskiness, as if she were close to tears.

He thought of all she had endured in the last few days, the tensions of the pressure upon Greville to succeed in an almost impossible task, the fear for his life which she knew was real. Then Piers had arrived and announced his betrothal, obviously without having even told his family he was deeply in love, let alone consulting them about his plans. The day after that, her husband had been murdered. Now Pitt was forcing her to realize that much of the entire life she had known was false, marred by ugliness and betrayal of her heart, her home, her innermost values. Her pain must be all but intolerable.

And yet she sat by the fire, blank-faced, and remained polite. A lesser woman would have wept, screamed, abused him for his cruelty. He hated being the instrument of her suffering. But it was far from impossible that Padraig Doyle had killed Greville. Greville’s treatment of Eudora would free Doyle from the constraints of family loyalties which might otherwise have held his hand. He was Irish, he was Catholic, he was a Nationalist. Greville would trust him above any other man in the house. They might easily have quarreled, but Greville would never have expected violence from him. He would have sat in the bath quite unafraid until the very last moment, when it was too late to cry out.

“Has your brother stayed with you at Oakfield House?”

“No, not for years.” She did not look at him.

“In London?”

“Sometimes. A great many people stayed with us in London. My husband has … had a very important position.”

“Do you go to Ireland from time to time?”

She hesitated.

He waited. The coals settled in the fire.

“Yes. Ireland was my home. I go back occasionally.”

There was no point in pressing her. All the questions in his mind were there between them. She understood, and would not answer.

“I’m sorry to have had to speak to you of it,” he said after a few moments. “I wish I could simply have burned the letters.”

“I understand,” she replied. “At least I think I do.” She looked up at him. “Mr. Pitt? Did Piers read these letters?”

“Yes … but he was not there when I spoke to the servants. He knew nothing about Kathleen O’Brien, or that there were other women in London.”

“Will you please tell him only what he has to know? Ainsley was his father ….”

“Of course. I have no desire to damage Mr. Greville’s reputation in anyone’s eyes, least of all his family’s ….”

She smiled at him. “I know. I do not envy you your task, Mr. Pitt. It must be very distressing at times.”

“Because it causes others pain,” he said gently. “People who are too much hurt already.”

She looked at him a moment longer, then turned back to the fire.

He excused himself and went out and back downstairs to see if Jack was yet free. He was not yet ready to find Charlotte. She was so at home here, so very competent, moving easily in this great house with its high ceilings, exquisite furniture and discreet servants going about their business. He could remember too clearly being one of the servants himself ever to take them for granted. At heart he would always be an outsider.